Burn the Midnight Oil
by RionahAnha
Summary: This was a Sammy that Dean had forgotten about- a snot nosed, tag along little shit with big brown eyes and dirty fingers and a smile that could rival the sun. This was a Sam he had known once- this was a Sam he suddenly, desperately, wanted to remember. DeAged Sam. Rated T for language. In-progress.
1. Chapter 1:On the Wingtips of a Dream

**Disclaimer: I wish.**

_To all of you who have been faithful in reviewing, favoriting, following, and enjoying these stories- thank you! I hope that you can all forgive me for going so long without posting anything._

_A lot of you have asked for a story regarding Sam's initial transformation, or a story regarding the events of the first few months after the de-aging, where the brothers try to adjust to their new roles and lives. This story covers all of that. It's something I've been working on for months, and I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Just a warning: it's long. And yes, it's multi-chaptered. I can't say for sure how long yet - because I'm still writing it- but it's substantial in length. Here's to hoping some of you stick around long enough to see the end of it! And remember- reviews (good, bad, and ugly) make me happy!_

**Chapter One: On the Wingtips of a Dream**

It was a gradual decision, one that came to him slowly as he broke out of the haze, the shock of Sam's transformation. One morning in early April he woke up and realized suddenly that he was prepared. He was ready. He could do this. He needed to.

He broached the subject with Bobby a few days later. They were in the garage, working on a truck someone had brought it the week before. Sam was playing in the yard, far enough away that he wouldn't be privy to their conversation and close enough that Dean could still keep an eye on him.

"I gotta do something, Bobby," he said. "We've been researching and studying and looking into every lead we can find, and we've got nothing. I need to go out and look for something. I can't just sit around on my hands and wait for a miracle to drop out of the sky."

Bobby grunted and leaned against the fender of the truck. Through the garage door, Sam was visible, crouched curiously over an ant hill. They watched him silently a moment, then Bobby sighed. "You think you're up for that, boy?" He slid Dean a sideways look; Dean ignored it.

"Yeah. I am." He didn't say what he was really thinking: that he didn't have a choice. There were still demons out there, gunning for Sam's soul. Sitting in one place for too long, with Sam so vulnerable and exposed, made Dean uneasy. More than ever now, Sam depended on him for protection. Dean had to deliver it.

Bobby sighed, ran a hand over his face. "Does the kid know?"

Dean watched Sam poke the anthill with a stick, squeal in fascination. He felt his chest tighten. Sam didn't know anything.

xxxx

The first month after it had happened, Dean moved as if in a fog. He was still fresh from Hell, still reeling from the shock of realizing the full extent of Sam's abilities, still doing battle with his nightmares and his own personal failures. There were demons and now angels warring for his brother's soul, and everything that Dean had ever known – including his faith in Sam- was crumbling into motes of dust at his feet.

And then suddenly- there was this. His brother, his back up, his back bone, his I've-got-your-back kid brother was gone, reduced somehow to an actual _kid _brother again.

And there was nothing Dean could do about it.

Bobby had taken Dean's frantic four-thirty in the morning phone call in stride, as he had always taken every single one of their calls over the years. He hadn't had anything to offer as a solution besides a place to stay, another pair of eyes to watch over Sammy, who, as far as Dean could tell, was four and a half years old again.

Dean waited two days inside of the motel room for Bobby. Those were the two longest days of his life, he felt- two days compulsively scanning every internet site he could find, two days drinking whiskey dry in the bathroom, two days fending off questions about "Daddy" and channel surfing for Elmo and cutting up pizza into bite size pieces. When Bobby finally arrived, he hadn't slept, changed, or showered since the night before it happened. He opened the door with stogdic despair and practically dragged Bobby inside by his shirt collar, watched him goggle in disbelief at the curly headed moptop sitting on the end of Dean's bed, his knees tucked against his chest, swimming in one of Dean's old band t-shirts. He turned his head and offered Bobby a toothy grin.

"Hey-o, Uncle Bobby!" He slithered off the end of the bed, hopped across the room, tugged on Bobby's hand. "Come'n see this, Uncle Bobby. They got a sponge and he has a fire under water!"

Bobby was led dumbly to the television set. Sam cocked his head at him, then turned and pressed his thumb across the animated colors on the screen. "See? He's got a pet snail too. You wanna watch't with me?"

Bobby shook himself. "Maybe later," he offered gruffly. "I'm gonna talk to your brother, okay, Sam?"

"Okie dokie." Sam plunked down on the floor in front of the set, stuck three fingers into his mouth. Bobby hesitated, then moved away from Sam, plowed through the motel door, pulling Dean with him as they went.

Outside in a snowstorm in Michigan was not exactly where Dean wanted to have this conversation, but there was no option. Bobby was staggered, running shaking hands through his beard, blinking rapidly at Dean. Dean sagged against the cold vinyl siding of the motel room and watched him charge through a hundred different emotions a minute.

"Dean, boy- what the hell?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't- Bobby, I have no fucking idea."

"I mean, how does- how does this even happen?" Bobby paced away, took his ballcap off, crushed the brim of it between his hands. "Jesus, Dean, that's really- that's really Sam in there."

Dean closed his eyes. His chest was cold and heavy. "I know."

"What does he remember?"

"Nothing. He- he's still talking about Dad, Bobby." Dean ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Bobby was silent. Then there was a hand, warm and calloused, familiar, on his shoulder. He felt himself shake from the contact.

"Boy, when's the last time you slept?"

Dean forced his eyes open, forced his head up. "What?"

"You look shot to shit." Bobby chuckled, but it was dry, mirthless. Inside, Sammy was singing along to the television. "Tell you what we're gonna do, Dean. You're gonna get inside, get yourself in a shower, get yourself in bed. I'm going to take Sam for a little, okay?"

Dean shook his head. "Bobby- there isn't time. We have to fix this-"

"And how are we going to do that?" Bobby asked harshly. He shook his head. "You're no good to anyone dead on your feet, Dean. We don't have any goddamned idea where we should start looking for a fix for this, so in the meantime, you and I are going to do the best we can with what we got. That means taking care of yourself as well as Sam."

Dean sagged. Bobby was right, he knew. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Bobby, he-"

"Boy, don't you dare insult me by trying to tell me how to take care of that kid in there." Bobby's smile was wry. "I did okay the first time, didn't I?"

xxxx

The shower was nice, Dean had to admit. He stood under the spray for a solid hour, until the water ran cold and weak. He forwent a shave, swallowed back another fifth of whiskey, and fell into bed without any sort of grace or dignity at all.

Sleep was blissfully black and empty. He woke once and the motel room was empty. The television was off and the t-shirt that Sam had been wearing for two days was tossed in a heap at the foot of the other bed. He rolled back over and went back to sleep without preamble.

When he woke again it was bright out. There was noise- a dull crackle from the crappy television set, plates clattering. Bobby's voice, admonishing someone. Pressure on his legs, traveling up his thighs, over his stomach, to settle solidly on his chest. Tiny, chubby hands poked at his cheek. "Bobby, he might be dead."

"Sam, I already told you to leave your brother alone-"

Dean forced his eyes open. Sam's face swam before his. He was so close that his curls brushed the tip of Dean's nose. Dean grunted, discombobulated, and sat up, pushing Sam backwards. "Personal space, dude."

Sam laughed and rolled off of the bed, hitting the floor with a solid thump. He was dressed, Dean saw blearily, not in the AC/DC shirt that had been his staple, but jeans that fit, a hooded sweatshirt with some sort of animated car on it. Bright red Converse sneakers. He poked his head over the side of the bed and crowed:

"Bobby- he's alive!"

Dean watched foggily as Sam scrambled backwards, towards the kitchenette where, Dean saw with some surprise, Bobby was _cooking_. Honest to God cooking, no aluminum cans or microwave dinner platters in sight. He hadn't seen Bobby do that since- well, since they were kids.

"I thought I told you to leave him alone," Bobby reprimanded Sam, who answered with a roll of his eyes.

"But he has t'eat, Bobby." He pivoted towards Dean. "Dean, you slept for eighteen hours. I counted."

Dean blinked. "Eighteen?" He scrambled to untangle himself from the blankets. "What time is it?"

"It's twelve-oh-six, Dean." Sam stepped forward, placed a hand on Dean's knee. He started at the contact. "Bobby showed me how t'read a clock, Dean."

Dean pushed Sam's hand away, stood. He was still only in his boxers. As he cast about for a shirt and pants, he called over his shoulder, "Any luck, Bobby?"

When Bobby didn't answer, he turned back around. Bobby was glaring at him, some sort of reproach in his eyes, and Sam was meekly climbing into a chair at the table, his head down. Dean tugged a shirt over his head, dug a pair of jeans out of his duffel. Bobby was laying plates on the table, his shoulders taut. Dean wondered what the hell he had done.

There were only two chairs at the table. Two chairs and three of them. Dean stood uncertainly a moment, watching Bobby ladle out scrambled eggs and breakfast sausage. Sam sat with his chin tucked against his chest, then cast an uncertain look up at Dean. "You can have my chair if you want, Dean," he offered quietly, and Dean realized suddenly what he had done. He coughed, cleared his throat.

"I thought we could just share, Sammy," he replied, and Sam grinned up at him, his face glowing.

"Okay, Dean," he agreed happily, and Bobby smirked at Dean from his spot across the table. When Sam didn't move, Dean raised an eyebrow.

"What, you want me to sit on _your_ lap, is that it?" Sam laughed and slid off the chair, waited impatiently while Dean took his place. He had barely settled in before Sam was hauling himself up Dean's legs, pulling at his arms. Dean hoisted him up, balanced him on one knee. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to sit. He felt stiff and out of joint. Sam, on the other hand, melded into Dean like he was meant to, like it hadn't been twenty one years since he had last sat on his brother's lap. He was oblivious to Dean's discomfort as he plowed through his scrambled eggs and sausage. He spilled his orange juice on the table and dropped his fork. Dean ate one-handed, one arm hovering in case Sam took a sudden dive or something.

Sam dominated the conversation. Him and Bobby had gone shopping, he told Dean, and they had gone to McDonalds, and he had lost his Happy meal toy at the playground, and did Dean want to see his new shirts and did Dean want to watch some Spongebob with him and –

"Did you find anything?" Dean asked Bobby pointedly, and Bobby shook his head no.

Dean showered again after lunch. He took the time to shave, to brush his teeth and re-dress his wounds from the previous hunt. The whiskey was gone from its hiding place underneath the sink. He hoped vaguely that it was Bobby who had gotten to it and not Sam.

He stepped back out into the motel room and was surprised by the silence. Sam was curled over on Dean's bed, fingers in mouth, sleeping. Dean watched him a moment- watched the soft up and down of his chest, the tiny flutters of his eyelashes, the pale blue veins tracing the soft folds of his eyelids. His little brother was _little, _and the thought of it made Dean want to cry.

He turned and found Bobby at the kitchenette table, hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup of coffee, eyes on Dean. He was unreadable. Dean eased himself into the chair across from him, took the cup that Bobby passed him. He drank the cup dry, soaking in the bitter bite of the black coffee.

"Dean, he doesn't remember _anything_."

Dean closed his eyes. "I know."

"I mean- he's not fazed by you, he's not fazed by me, but he barely remembers John. He asked about your daddy a couple times, but it wasn't like he was really bothered by it." Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face. "Dean- I have no idea what to do."

Dean looked at the cup in his hands, focused on the trembling of his fingers. "He can't stay like this, Bobby. We got Lilith to worry about, and that bitch Ruby is going to come poking around sooner or later, and Jesus- this Apocalypse shit, and the angels-" Dean gasped, struggled for words. "Bobby, how am I supposed to take care of all of that and him?"

Bobby was silent. On the bed, Sam coughed in his sleep, rolled over onto his side. His hair flopped across his forehead; Dean had the sudden, weird urge to go over there and touch it.

"Dean, don't take this wrong way, okay?"

Dean almost groaned aloud. Bobby starting off a conversation with that opener almost always meant a fight was in the works somewhere. He got up out of the chair and poured himself another cup of coffee from the outdated percolator on the motel countertop. "What is it, Bobby?"

Bobby hesitated, then said, "Boy, this Apocalypse has to take a back seat, okay? You're right. You can't worry about that crap and Sam at the same time. You've got to pick and I'm telling you- your brother needs you a lot more right now than those damn angels do."

Dean leaned against the counter, sipped at his coffee. It didn't taste as good this time around. "Bobby…we're talking the end of the world here. That doesn't just take a back seat."

"So what, your brother does?"

It was a low blow. Dean knew Bobby's opinion of John, of his parenting ideology. "Hunt first, family later," Bobby had once snorted in John's face. Dean remembered that fight all too well. He remembered storming out behind his father, dragging Sammy with him. He remembered the feeling wrenching his stomach- the feeling that Bobby was right, and his father, his hero, was in the wrong.

He stuck out his jaw. "That's not-"

"Don't try to justify yourself to me, Dean," Bobby snapped. "This is your _brother_ we're talking about. He needs you. Don't you dare think that you can bench him like your father did and look me in the eye ever again. You're a better man than your father ever was, boy. You make the right decision, right now, or so help me God, you won't ever see that little boy again."

Dean felt sick. He closed his eyes, slumped his head into his hands. The tears that he had held at bay for three days now burned underneath his eyelids. "Bobby- what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Bobby shifted. "Dean- take Sam and come home with me. There's no telling how long he's gonna be like this. It will be safer there."

That was Dean's job, wasn't it? Look out for your brother; keep an eye on your brother; don't let your brother out of your sight. Sam's safety depended on him, now more than it ever had. He realized suddenly how very much he stood to lose.

He sighed. The cup of coffee was cold in his hands. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the empty bottle of whiskey in the trash can. "Okay, Bobby," he said.

xxxx

They left that night, under the cover of darkness. Sam was groggy and fighting sleep; Dean bundled him into the back seat of the Impala, wrapping him into a couple of blankets, nestling him on top of the stolen motel bed pillows.

"It's not comfy back here," Sam whined, and Dean bent over him, made sure he was safely pressed into the crease of blankets and leather seats.

"You'll be okay," he said gruffly. "We're going to Bobby's, okay? Just try to sleep."

"It's not comfy, Dean."

He ignored Sam's protests and slid himself behind the wheel of the Impala while Bobby did one final sweep of the motel room before nodding to Dean and getting into his own car. Dean followed him out of the parking lot, onto the highway. It was snowing lightly; Dean turned on the heater, cranked it as high as it would go. "You okay back there?" He called over his shoulder and received no answer. Sam was out like a light.

They made poor time through Michigan. The roads were deserted but the snow hampered their progress. It was a little after one when the skies cleared and they pressed onward, spurred into making up lost time.

Sam woke up at four demanding a bathroom break, and then again at six, and then at eight for breakfast. They got sandwiches and coffee at a McDonalds just over the Indiana line; Sam ate pancakes and Dean had to wash syrup out of his hair afterwards.

An all day drive with a four year old in the backseat was not something that Dean was looking forward to, and apparently, neither was Sam. He was good for an hour, playing with the toy Dean had bought him at McDonalds, and then he was doing things like trying to climb over the back of the seat and kicking his heels against the window and complaining that the music was too loud, the music was boring, the car was boring, Dean was boring-

When they stopped for lunch at the Illinois line, Dean watched Bobby watch him with some amusement as he struggled to get Sam's shoes back on, fought Sam about putting his coat on, argued with Sam about why he couldn't have ice cream for lunch. After they had eaten, when they were stepping back outside into the light snowfall and Sam was crying because Dean wouldn't let him lick the icicle hanging on the door handle, Bobby took Sam's hand from his and offered glibly, "Sam- how do you feel about riding with me for a little?"

Sam cheered; Dean nearly kissed him.

The following six hours were troublingly blissful. Dean cruised down the highway behind Bobby, careful to never let more than one car between him. He watched Sam's head bob through the back window; watched Bobby's constant mirror checks. Dean bleached his knuckles against the steering wheel, kept his gun in plain sight on the seat beside him. If something was following them – and he was pretty sure there was nothing- then he would be ready for it. There was no way in hell he was letting anything even sniff at his little brother.

Bobby called him around five. "Town up ahead," he said by way of greeting. Dean could hear Sammy laughing in the background. Dean wondered dismissively why Bobby got the happy Sam and he got the grouchy one. "Welk, Illinois. I thought we could put up there for the night."

Dean was exhausted. His shoulders hurt, his eyes hurt, his head hurt. He moaned. "Bobby, that's the best idea you've ever had."

They found a little motel off the side of the highway. Dean checked them in while Bobby manhandled Sam out of a snowdrift. The room was small and cold: two twin beds with scratchy yellow blankets, a bathroom that smelled faintly of urine and chlorine, a kitchenette with a red Formica table and a microwave. The thermostat wouldn't budge when Dean tried to crank it. "We'll have to bring in the blankets from the car," he told Bobby, who frowned.

They ordered Chinese from a menu they found in the motel office. Bobby showered while they waited for it to arrive; Dean turned on the television, found that stupid yellow sponge, and plopped Sam down in front of it. "Think you can handle this for awhile?" He asked, and Sam rolled his eyes.

"I'm not a baby, Dean," he said petulantly. Dean rolled his eyes back and set about arranging the extra blankets on the bed. After a second's hesitation, he pulled a blue knitted afghan out of the pile and, crouching, draped it around Sam. Sam pulled away. "Dean-"

"It's cold in here, Sammy." Dean pushed Sam's hands down, situated the blanket over his tiny shoulders. "Just humor me, okay?"

Sam watched him a moment. "Okie dokie, Dean-o," he said finally, and someone knocked on the door.

It was the delivery boy with their Chinese. Dean paid him and set the paper bag on the table just as Bobby emerged from the bathroom, capless and dressed in what Dean guessed passed as pajamas for him: sweatpants and a grey t-shirt that had seen better days. "Food here?" he asked, and Dean handed him a pair of chop sticks with a wry grin before calling:

"Sammy, come eat."

Sam straggled over from the television, the blue blanket trailing after him. He stopped at Dean's elbow and sniffed derisively at the assortment on the table. "That's not pizza, Dean."

"I never said we were getting pizza, Sam." Dean took his brother under the arms and hoisted him into the chair. He was feather light, he realized; before Sam had been the size of a small barn, he had been the smallest kid Dean knew.

Despite his initial misgivings, Sam ate ravenously. He refused the plastic fork that Dean offered and insisted on stabbing his chicken with the chop sticks. When he got tired of that, he used his hands. Dean was too tired to care.

Bobby went to bed almost immediately after eating. Dean washed Sam's face and hands, then tucked him into the other bed. He realized with dread that he had a long night of sharp elbows and kicking legs ahead of him. He covered Sam to his chin with a layer of blankets and went in to shower. When he came back out, over half an hour later, Sam was sitting up on the end of Bobby's bed, watching the local news and sucking his fingers. He started when Dean came out; Dean felt his pulse spike behind his eyes.

"Sam."

"I wanted t'wait for you." Sam scrambled off of the bed and hurried back into his own bed, into the spot Dean had tucked him forty five minutes ago. "I just wanted t'wait for you, Dean."

Dean rubbed his eyes. Sam watched him apprehensively from the bed, his curls spilling like a dark puddle across the pillow. With a sigh, Dean turned out the bathroom light and slid into the bed next to his brother. He was startled when Sam immediately latched onto him, throwing a leg over his stomach and nestling his head in the crook of Dean's neck.

"G'night, Dean-o," he said happily, and Dean coughed.

"Night, Sammy."

For a long time, he lay stiffly in the bed and listened to the sounds of the night: Bobby snoring across the room from them, the drone of cars along the highway outside, the rhythmic whispers of breath from Sam. He felt the weight of the burden he carried, watched it move slowly in the dim yellow light cast through the motel room window. Sam slept soundly on his chest, his curls ticking Dean's chin, his little fingers wrapped in the collar of Dean's t-shirt. It took him back years, to other winter nights spent in a similar fashion: huddled under blankets in cold motel rooms, waiting on their father's return, secure in the knowledge that they had each other, that they would be fine.

It had been a long time, Dean thought bitterly, since he had had that sort of reassurance from his brother. He wondered, as Sam sniffled against his chest, dug a knee into his ribs, if he ever would again.

xxxx

The next morning broke clear and freezing. They ate leftover Chinese for breakfast and left before the sun was even all of the way up. Sam fell asleep in the back of the Impala, and Dean inwardly cheered when they flew past the Iowa state line sign.

Sam was awake again before long, demanding a bathroom break and a snack. They pulled over at a gas station, where Dean took Sam to the bathroom and bought him a small bag of Cheetos.

"Can I sit up front, Dean?" Sam asked when they came back outside, and Dean had enough presence of mind to deny him that request.

"It's bad enough you don't have a car seat. No." He pulled open the back door, waited. Sam glared at him from where he stood, his bag of Cheetos crushed to his chest.

"I'm not a baby, Dean."

Dean ground his teeth together. Bobby was watching from the other car, he knew. Without replying, he swept Sam off of his feet, trundled him into the back of the car, and listened with ringing ears to Sam's ensuing meltdown for twenty minutes.

He had forgotten what it was like to travel with a kid over long distances. Of course, he had been a kid then too, so it had been different. He didn't remember nearly this many bathroom breaks, this many whining jags, this many questions, this much noise. Only six days ago he had been cruising along with Sam at his side, bickering over the fastest route, arguing over the music. He missed it suddenly, so much that he could barely breathe. He fought through it, gasping, and in the back seat, Sam turned huge, alarmed eyes on him.

"Dean-o?" He asked, and it was that voice, that nickname, that dragged him back from that hole, that yawning gulf of self-pity and despair. He steeled himself against the memories, sought out Sam's eyes in the rearview.

"I'm okay, Sammy," he said gruffly, and Sam sniffled, wiped at his nose with his hand. His face was smeared orange with Cheetos dust.

"Okay, Dean-o."

He was fine. He had to be. His brother needed him to be.

xxxx

South Dakota was made after nightfall, and after a quick dinner, they agreed to push on. Eleven forty five saw them turning off of the highway into Sioux Falls; twelve-oh-three and they were pulling through the gates at Singer's Salvage.

Dean had never before felt so relieved at the sight of the ramshackle old farmhouse. He parked the Impala alongside the side of the house. Sam, sleeping in the back, stirred but didn't wake. Dean opted to leave him that way. He slung his duffels over his shoulders and slid Sam, wrapped like a burrito in that blue afghan, across the leather of the back seat and into his arms. Sam murmured in his sleep, turned his face into the crook of Dean's arm. He didn't wake when Dean mounted the steps to the porch and followed Bobby into the hallway of the musty old house. Bobby stopped to fiddle with the thermostat, turning sagging blue eyes on Dean.

"I'm about beat," he said, and Dean chuckled weakly.

"That's an understatement."

Bobby shook his head, yawned. "Take him up to the spare bedroom, okay? You boys take that. I'm just gonna check in, lock up, and I'm turning in too."

Dean nodded. He hitched Sammy higher in his arms, started up the steps. He stopped on the third or fourth one. "Bobby?"

Bobby glanced over his shoulder at him. "Yeah?"

Dean swallowed. "Thanks."

It was an all-encompassing thanks. He didn't have to say what for; Bobby knew. He watched as Bobby's face softened, smiled. "Anytime, boy."

Dean nodded again and went up the stairs. In the spare bedroom, he unwrapped Sam from his cocoon of blue yarn, wrestled his sneakers and jacket off of him, and laid him on the pillow on the far side of the bed. His eyes fluttered open once; he whimpered and reached up imploring hands, fisted his fingers against Dean's jaw. "D'n."

"I'm right here, Sammy."

Dean shucked off his own boots and jeans, tossed his jacket on the bedpost. He turned off the light and climbed into the bed, into the sweetness of a familiar mattress and blankets that didn't smell like someone else's night sweats. Sam rolled over immediately, folded himself into Dean's side without any hesitation, and this time, Dean didn't mind. He followed the soft lullaby of his brother's heartbeat into oblivion.

xxxx

Sleep, even when exhausted, was a rarity. Dean couldn't think of one night in the last five months that hadn't been ruined by nightmares or concerns about Sam. Tonight was no exception.

The clock on his cell phone read 4 am when he was pulled from sleep by the querulous tugging of his younger brother. He blinked back to reality, gasping for consciousness. The small hand on his shirtfront was relentless.

"Dean. Dean, I gotta pee."

Dean used one hand to feel in the dark for Sam, the other hand to wipe away the blinking lights from his vision. Sam's face swam into focus. He groaned. "Sam, go to sleep."

"I gotta pee, Dean."

Dean closed his eyes, but Sam was on his chest, crouched over him, plying him with too small fingers, stage whispering in a too small voice. "Dean, I really gotta pee."

Dean tore himself away from the stirring temptation of sleep and pulled himself upright. Sam scuttled backwards. The moonlight framed him silver and blue. "Dean, I don't know where to pee. I don't remember."

That was the problem, wasn't it? Sam didn't remember anything. Dean groaned again, rubbed the grogginess from his face, and stood. The floor was cold beneath his feet. Sam slid off the bed after him, slipping his hand into Dean's- trustingly, obediently. This was a Sam that Dean barely remembered.

"Dean, where are we?"

Dean opened the bedroom door. The hallway outside was dark. Bobby's snoring traveled down the hall, bouncing off of the walls. Dean led Sam out, careful to step quietly.

"We're at Bobby's." He reached inside the bathroom, flipped the light on. Sam blinked crazily in the sudden light; Dean pushed him through the doorway. "Here. Do your thing. Hurry up."

The door closed. Dean leaned against the wall and waited. It was freezing, he thought absently. He would have to take a look at the heater tomorrow. It fritzed out last winter too-

The door swung open. Sam sniffed up at him. "Dean, I'm still in my jeans."

"So?" It was too cold to wait for Sam to take his time here. Dean reached down and swung Sammy off of his feet, settled him against one hip. Sometime over the last five days, he had realized that the fastest way to get Sam from Point A to Point B was to haul him there himself.

"I can't sleep in my jeans, Dean."

They were back in the bedroom. Dean closed the door behind him, tumbled Sam onto the bed. Sam righted himself, bouncing on his knees. "Dean, I can't sleep in my jeans," he insisted again, and Dean sighed. In the bright winter moonlight he hunted along the floor for his duffels, then inside of them for a shirt. He pulled it out and threw it at Sam.

"Here. Put this on."

Sam stood on wobbly legs, sinking and rising on the mattress. He laughed. "Dean-"

"Sam, it's four a.m."

He hadn't meant to be so harsh, but, _Jesus_, he was tired, and cold, and he wanted just a few more hours before he had to deal with this all over again. Sam looked hurt- his eyes darkened and his mouth turned down.

"It's not my fault," he said petulantly, and Dean remembered that same line of defense from a hundred other arguments: spilling the last cup of juice, breaking the window in that seedy motel room, jamming the toilet handle. He stared at his brother, watched him struggle with the button on his jeans, and felt something inside of him shatter. He couldn't do this. This was not something he could endure a second time.

He went wordlessly to his brother, helped him out of his jeans and his sweatshirt. He was little, Dean saw again with despair, little and uncoordinated and so very helpless. Sam shivered while Dean slipped the t-shirt over his head – too big, it was grey and shouted LED ZEPPELIN across the front- and tucked him back under the blankets.

Dean took a minute to fold Sam's jeans and sweatshirt and stack them back on top of the duffels. When he returned to the bed Sam was already drowsing, his eyes lolling back in his head and his breathing evening out. Dean sank back into the bed, back into the warmth, back into the mindless wasteland of sleep. Before he slipped away for good, he was dimly aware of Sam's hand anchoring itself in his own.

xxxx

It was bright when he woke with a start. He lay still a moment, gasping in the cold air of the room, his heart racing. He dared not close his eyes. He knew what he would see there- red and black and iron and chains and blood-

Beside him, Sammy slept on. Dean watched him out of the corner of his eye, the way his lips curled around his thumb, the way his nose crinkled in some dream. That old blue afghan – where the hell had they picked that thing up, anyways?- was tucked around his chin, wormed through the fisted hand at his mouth. Sam's other hand, Dean realized suddenly, was still grasped tight in his own.

He excavated his fingers from his brother's grip and sat up. It was ten past nine in the morning. Outside, snow sifted out of grey clouds. Downstairs, the television thrummed, a pan clattered, a door opened. Bobby was up, Dean thought distantly. It struck him how normal it all felt, when everything else was still so wrong.

He pulled on sweatpants and socks, then leaned over the bed to rouse Sammy. His brother whimpered, blinked at Dean, and tried to bury his head back into the pillow. In the end, Dean pulled him, afghan and all, into his arms and went downstairs to find Bobby.

Bobby was where Dean had thought he would be: in the kitchen, doing battle with half a dozen eggs and bacon. Dean's stomach growled appreciatively. "Bobby," he said, "We have to fix this."

Bobby sighed. It didn't look as if the night's sleep had done him much good; Dean suspected that he looked the same. He crossed the kitchen and dumped Sam, who was finally waking, into a chair.

Sam slumped against the table, blinking slowly. "Where're we?" He asked in a small voice. Dean opened the refrigerator in hopes of finding milk or something to give the kid. He wasn't surprised when all he found was two six packs of beer and a mason jar of lamb's blood.

"Dean?"

Dean turned. Sam blinked owlishly at him from the table. "We're at Bobby's. I told you that already."

"I forgot." Sam stuck his fingers into his mouth, pulled the afghan higher around his shoulder. "How come it's diff'rent?"

Dean exchanged an uncertain look with Bobby. How much were they supposed to tell Sam, anyways? Sam was four. He didn't even know about monsters or demons yet; he didn't even really understand simple things like how to double-knot his shoes laces or why he didn't have a mother. How on earth was Dean supposed to explain something like this to him?

Bobby saved them both by planting a plate of food in front of Sam. "Eat up," he ordered gruffly, and Sam blinked from him to the plate to Dean.

"I hate eggs," he said simply. "I want Lucky Charms."

Of course he did. "We don't have any," Dean replied. He filled a glass of water at the sink, drank from it liberally, then re-filled it and put it in front of Sam's plate. "Here. There's no juice and there's no cereal. This is it."

Sam was looking at the glass with a sour expression. "You drank from that," he muttered, and Dean had to close his eyes. He'd forgotten what a picky kid Sam had been.

"Its fine, Sammy." Dean took a plate from Bobby, sat at the table. He shoveled a piece of bacon into his mouth and reached across the table to nudge Sam's plate closer to him. "Eat up, dude."

"I said I hate eggs, Dean." Sam glared at him. "They got dead babies inside'a them."

Dean almost choked on his bacon. Bobby hid his sudden laugh with the rim of his coffee mug. Dean swallowed, glared at Sam. "Don't say it like that. That's gross."

Sam stuck his jaw out. "They got dead babies. I know. I saw one."

"Dude, they don't. They're not fertilized." Everyone knew that, Dean thought with a sinking feeling, everyone but Sam. Sam was four years old again, and as bright as he had been at that age, there was a whole world out there that was beyond his comprehension. A whole world, Dean saw, that he was relying on someone to show to him, to help him navigate. And without a mother and without a father, who was he looking to for that but his big brother?

Dean's appetite fled him. He had too much to do, he thought. He didn't have the time to sit around eating breakfast. He had a world to save, an Apocalypse to stop, a little brother to fix. There was more at stake than there had ever been. It wasn't his head on the chopping block- it was Sam's whole life, his future, his very being. He had to get his brother back. There wasn't another option. Dean couldn't do this without him.

"What's fer'lized?" Sam asked innocently, and Dean angrily shoved another piece of bacon in his mouth, stood in a rush.

"Stop talking and eat your breakfast, Sam," he snapped, and dumped his plate in the sink. He left to take a shower without bothering to watch the hurt flicker across his little brother's face.

xxxx

He took his time in the shower. He turned it as hot as it could go, stood underneath the burning water with his head bowed, and leaned against the grouted tile wall until his neck ached and his skin stung. He listened to the steady patter of the water as it drummed out the rest of the world, felt it wrap him in its solitude. For the first time in days, he was alone; he didn't have to pretend, he didn't have to plaster on a face for the rest of the world to see. He could almost just imagine that this was all a dream, a night mare he was bound to wake up from sooner or later-

When he emerged from the bathroom into the guest room, four year old Sam was waiting for him on the bed, hands clasped between his knees, socked feet bouncing against the bedframe, face turned down in a frown. Dean paused when he saw him sitting there and took half a second to decide if he should turn around and leave. He kicked himself the minute he thought it. Leave Sam?

Sam looked at him as he stepped through the door. "Bobby said I gotta shower," he declared. "He says I stink an' I should tell you." He stuck his pointer finger in his mouth, wormed the fingers of his other hand through his hair. "Dean, I don't like showers. I just like baths."

Dean remembered. It had taken Sammy until he was almost six to take his first shower. He didn't like the spray- he was afraid of drowning. Dean felt like caving in, suddenly. Was this what it was going to be? Re-fighting every single one of Sam's childhood battles, with even less expertise than last time? He shook his head, dug a pair of clean jeans out of his duffel, stuffed one leg, then the other, into them.

"You can shower," he told Sam. "You'll be okay."

Sam's eyes rounded, shimmered. "Dean," he whispered desperately, "I'm too scared."

Dean bit back another sigh of irritation. He pulled on a t-shirt, slung his towel over his shoulder, and pulled Sam off of the bed. "Sammy," he said firmly, "You'll be fine."

In the bathroom, he ran the shower warm and helped Sam strip out of the t-shirt, out of his socks and underwear, trying to ignore the whimpering coming from his little brother the entire time. "Sam, you'll be fine, okay? You can't drown in a frigging shower."

"What if it fills up, Dean?" Sam clung to his arm; Dean shook him off, swept the curtain aside, maneuvered Sam over the side of the tub and underneath the spray. "Dean, what if it fills up?"

"Then it'll be a bath and you'll be happy," Dean muttered. He closed the curtain and turned away. Behind him, Sam ripped the curtain back.

"Dean, can you stay? Please?"

Those eyes- those stupid big brown puppy dog eyes- were more potent on four year old Sammy than they had been on twenty five year Sam. Dean struggled against the scream building in his throat and sat on the closed toilet. "Yes. Jesus, Sam- close the damn curtain and get washed up, will you?"

The curtain retracted. Beyond it, Sam moved fumblingly, sniffling. "Dean, what if I get water in my mouth accidentally? Will it drown me then?"

Dean massaged his temples. His head throbbed. "Sam. You can't drown in a shower."

More sniffling, more tentative shuffling. Then: "Okie dokie, Dean-o."

Dean hadn't been Dean-o in eighteen years. He closed his eyes, ground his fists into his thighs, breathed out and in through the tightening band in his chest. He couldn't lose it now- there was too much at stake. He took that pain, that confusion and fear, and barricaded it behind his stolid resolve. He would fix this, fix Sam, if it was the last thing that he ever did.

Dean took Sam downstairs when he was done showering and plopped him on the couch in front of the television. He flipped through the twelve channels that Bobby had, found a cartoon of some kind of animal with glasses that he vaguely remembered from somewhere, and turned to Sam. "You okay for awhile?" He asked, and Sam stuck his fingers in his mouth and shrugged.

He joined Bobby in the kitchen, where the dishes from breakfast had been piled in the sink and mugs of coffee were available. Dean took it, swallowed it, grimacing at the taste, and coughed. "Jesus, Bobby- this is disgusting."

Bobby snorted. "I'm not running out to get you a latte, boy."

Dean rolled his eyes. Lattes were Sam's drink. They used to be. Dean didn't think he was going to be having another one of those for a very long time. "Bobby…"

Bobby nodded slowly. He knew. He always knew, somehow, just what Dean was trying to say, what he needed to hear. "Boy, we need to start from the beginning. Treat this as any other hunt, okay? You think you can do that?"

It was a load of bull. Treat this as any other hunt? This was Sam, and he was more messed up than Dean would have ever thought was possible. He chuckled weakly, shook his head. "Yeah."

Bobby's eyes sharpened to his. "I'm serious, Dean. I know this is a load of crock and it's a lot to take on now, but I need your head in the game. We gotta do this."

"Yeah." Dean coughed, got up from the table to pour himself another coffee. In the living room, Sam had abandoned the couch for the top of the coffee table. His fingers were still in his mouth. Dean grimaced; he'd forgotten how gross little kids could be. "So what's the first step, Bobby?"

Bobby sighed. "We gotta figure out what did this to him, Dean." He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table. "What were you two hunting up there in Michigan?"

Dean sipped his coffee. "An Opongo. Bobby, they can't do shit like this-"

"What about before that?"

Dean shrugged. "A necromancer in Philly. Bobby, nothing we've come in contact with in the last two months could have done something like this."

Bobby was quiet a moment. "What about before that?"

Dean scrubbed the back of his hair with his fingers. Sam edged off of the coffee table, cast a tentative look towards them in the kitchen, and settled on the floor in front of the television. "Bobby, you know what we've been dealing with."

"The Apocolypse. Right." Bobby hesitated. "You don't think one of them could have done this?"

"One of who? The demons? Maybe."

"I mean one'a the others. Your angel friends."

Dean's face darkened. "They're not my friends." He tipped the mug to his lips, held it there even though it was empty. He didn't want to see the look he knew Bobby was giving him. "Bobby, we've got to have some way to keep him safe in the meantime. Ruby knows her way here. Cas does. Any of them show up and see him- word gets out that he's defenseless like this, we're going to have a whole new pile of shit on our hands."

"I know." Bobby followed Dean's gaze into the living room, where Sam was bobbing his head along in time to the music on the television. "Jesus, Dean…."

Dean said nothing. He knew.

xxxx

They warded the property. They re-painted the Solomon's Keys above the doors and windows, spray painted one under each carpet, even braved the cold to carve them into the windowsills outside. Every vent, every window and door was lined with salt, and Bobby drove to the gate of his property to paint wardings on the fence. Sam watched them with curiosity.

"Can I help?" He asked, and Dean hesitated.

"Not really," he said, and Sam sighed, sank to the floor next to where Dean was working on the back door frame.

"Dean, I'm bored. Can we go outside?"

It was still snowing. The drifts were piling up against the porch steps, burying the yard under a blanket of soft white. Sam didn't have any boots or mittens or even a proper jacket. Dean sighed.

"Not today, dude."

"Tomorrow?" Sam asked hopefully. Dean turned away.

"Maybe."

Lunchtime came and went without either of them noticing. It wasn't until Sam started whining that he was hungry that Dean realized it was nearly three o'clock. He put Sam at the table, where he had been scrolling through Google searches madly, and investigated Bobby's fridge. Besides the eggs and beer and blood, he had a few onions, a plastic bowl of chili, and a container of left over Chinese noodles. The cabinets yielded even less, so Dean dug the noodles out of the fridge and heated them in the microwave. Sam scowled when he offered it to him.

"Dean, this is gross." He crinkled his nose, sniffed experimentally at it. "Dean, I want maraconi'n cheese."

"It's macaroni," Dean corrected. "And we don't have any. This is it."

"I don't like this stuff." Sam's eyes were filling up. "Dean, this stuff is gross."

"You haven't even tried it." Dean pushed the plate towards Sam, who drew backwards, pressing himself further into the chair.

"It looks gross, Dean." Sam was breathing hard and fast now; Dean knew enough from the last six days to know what was coming next. He braced himself for the impact, beckoned to the plate.

"Sammy, it's all there is."

"You're lying." Sam dropped his face into his hands, took a deep shuddering breath through his fingers. "You always have more. Dad always buys the maraconi. How come I can't have any?"

It was the mention of his father that did it, Dean thought later. He was plunged suddenly over the edge that he had been trembling so precariously on since that morning six days ago. The plate was suddenly a shattered mess on the floor, and Sam was looking at him with something akin to real fear on his face. Dean couldn't think; it was hard to breathe, to move, to remember. He was vaguely aware, somewhere, that this was unfair, that Sam didn't know any better, that Sam didn't remember, that it wasn't his fault-

Dean didn't care. It wasn't his fault either. What happened to Sam was _not_ his fault. It shouldn't even be his problem, except that there was no one else. It was always him, he thought bitterly. _Always_. Dean Winchester got the shit end of the stick every single time.

Bobby was there. He gave Dean a long, calculated look, then pushed him aside and went to Sam, who was crying, his little fingers wrapped around the arms of the chair, his little chest moving in and out, his breaths rapid fire, like a machine gun. He was so little, Dean thought in the midst of his anger- so little, and it hurt to look at him. After all of the shit Sam had been handed in the last twenty five years, why this? Why now?

Bobby picked Sam up off the chair, wincing a little. He gave Dean another look, then used a hand to brush Sam's hair back. Dean remembered suddenly, that same affection shown to another Sam, years ago. He closed his eyes, sagged against the counter, listened with dull ears to Bobby's soft consolations. "How about you lie down upstairs for awhile, Sammy, and I'll order us some pizza. Okay?"

Sam hiccupped. "C-c-can we have extra cheese?" He asked tearily, and Bobby chuckled.

"Extra, extra cheese," he assured him. "But maybe you should get a little rest first."

"Can Dean rest too?" Sam asked. Dean opened his eyes, found Sam's gaze pinned on him over Bobby's shoulder. "I don't want t'be alone."

"I'll stay with you." Bobby stepped out of the kitchen, up the stairs. His voice carried back. "Dean's a little busy right now, Sam…"

Dean waited until the bedroom door creaked over head, till the raging in his chest calmed to a murmur. Then he picked up the splinters of ceramic with shaking fingers, scraped splattered noodles into the dust pan with a heavy heart. He was terrified to watch the floor and his hands and the garbage bin blur before him; he ran his palms over his face, grateful that Bobby was upstairs. No one needed to see him like this- the only person who he'd ever allowed to was Sam, and that was all shot to shit. For the first time, Dean realized how very alone he was, and the impact was staggering. He sat at the table, elbows on knees, face in hands, and struggled to bring to front his own hard bitten resolve, his rough exterior. That was gone, smashed to smithereens on the racks of Hell, and he had no one left to rely on.

Eventually, he managed to move. He opened the laptop and went back to Google, to all of the thousands of useless webpages there. Bobby came back downstairs and into the kitchen, where he moved to the sink and ran the water.

"We oughtta try to make sure he naps once in awhile," Bobby said wryly over his shoulders. "Jesus Christ, and here I was thinking it was hard to get you to take it easy."

Dean tried to force a smile on his face, tried to force something, but nothing came. He sat dumb and useless and heavy while Bobby washed his hands in the sink and dried them on a paper towel. He poured himself a finger of whiskey. He knocked it back, poured another, offered it to Dean. He took it down in one burning gulp.

"Bobby," he said, "He keeps talking about Dad."

Bobby was quiet. He sat at the table, the bottle of whiskey held loosely on his knee, and took a deep breath. "You gonna tell him?" He asked, and Dean shot him a dark look.

"Tell him what?" He asked loudly. "That he's twenty five years old? That his father's dead? Bobby, he can't even zipper his own frigging pants. He doesn't know shit. How the hell do we explain something like this to him?"

Bobby opted to drink the whiskey straight from the bottle, forgoing the glass this time. "Boy," he said, "I ain't saying it's a perfect plan. Hell, I don't even think it's a halfway decent one. But we gotta start somewhere. Letting Sam go on day by day with this illusion that his daddy is gonna come sweeping through the door at any moment is cruel to him. I'm not saying give him the whole deal flat- but this isn't something you can keep from him."

Dean ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. "So what? I have to do it? I'm the one that gets to break the kid's heart?"

Bobby's jaw hardened. "I'll do it if you want me to," he said solidly. "But I'm just his uncle, Dean, and not even really that. You're his brother. Something tells me he would take it better from you."

Dean didn't answer. He couldn't. Just when he thought things were getting better, something came along and tore open the patch of wound that was his father, and everything he'd thought he'd laid to rest rose back up with a vengeance.

Bobby was quiet a moment longer. Then he asked, quietly, "Pizza okay with you, boy?"

Dean wasn't hungry, but he nodded anyways.

Bobby ordered the pizza and went to pick it up. While he was gone, Dean went methodically through the house with the bottle of whiskey, checking and re-checking the salt lines, the Keys on the windowsills, the locks on the doors-

Someone creaked on the stairs. It was Sam, ruffle haired, rubbing a fist into his eye, dressed sparsely in his red hoodie and underwear. He blinked at Dean, who was peering out the front curtain. He felt shaky. He wished Bobby would come home-

"I'm sorry I didn't eat your noodles, Dean," Sam said softly, and Dean turned a critical eye to his brother. Sam's bottom lip was quivering. "I'm sorry I said it was gross."

Dean didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure what was the proper response to give to a four year old's slightly ridiculous apology. "Did Bobby put you up to this?" He asked finally, and Sam looked at his feet.

"Uncle Bobby says you're tryin'," he whispered. "He said I should be nice t'you because you're just tryin' hard an' you're tired." He peeked up at Dean from underneath a fringe of bangs. "Dean, if you're tired, you could come take a nap with me. I won't kick. I promise."

The promise of a four year old should have meant nothing to him. Sam's word had become, over the course of the past several months, nothing more than a shout into the wind. Dean had stopped believing in his brother long ago.

But something stopped him. He was suddenly embarrassed of the whiskey bottle in his hands, of the way the room slurred about him. Was this how he wanted his brother to see him? It had been so long since he had cared about keeping up appearances, least of all for Sam. But this- this wasn't Sam, not really. This was a Sammy that Dean had forgotten about- a snot nosed, tag along little shit with big brown eyes and dirty fingers and a smile that could rival the sun. _This _ was a Sam he had known once- this was a Sam he suddenly, desperately, wanted to remember.

He put the whiskey bottle on the ground behind the coat rack and held out a hand to Sam. "You want to nap a little longer, Sammy?" He asked, and Sam considered, tipping his head to one side and sticking his fingers in his mouth.

"Okie dokie, Dean-o," he agreed, and they went up stairs, where Dean tucked Sam back into bed and stretched out beside him atop the blankets, webbed his fingers beneath his head and closed his eyes. Sam waited a moment, then burrowed his face in Dean's side and fell asleep instantly. Dean lay awake a while longer and tried not to think about what he was going to have to tell Sammy when he awoke, what he and Bobby were facing, the job they would have to tackle in the coming days. They had to get Sam back. They _had _to.

But in the mean time, Dean thought, he could deal. He'd have to. Sammy needed him to, and being needed, he thought groggily, was what Dean did best.


	2. Chapter 2: On the Edge of the Storm

**Disclaimer: I wish.**

_Wow! Thanks so much for all of the great responses to the first chapter, guys. As always, I'm super happy to see that you're all enjoying the story and SUPER psyched to hear that you're all anxious for more! I hope I don't disappoint! Don't forget to review! Feedback makes my heart sing!_

_Also- some of you seemed a little confused as to how exactly Sam's transformation took place. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything - I haven't told you yet. It's coming though, I promise..._

**Chapter Two: On the Edge of the Storm**

The seventh day since Sam's disaster roared in with a blizzard. Dean woke to the howl of the wind, barely audible over the rampant pounding of his heart. He was coated with sweat, shivering; his head throbbed angrily. He took a minute to re-orientate himself, to blink away the residue of red and black and smoke-

The bed beside him was empty; the pillow dented where he assumed Sam had spent the night. Dean sat up, tracked his eyes wildly across the room. Sam was at the window, his face pressed against the glass, the blue afghan thrown over a shoulder, trailing him on the floor. He turned when Dean stirred.

"Dean, can we go outside today?"

Dean groaned and lay back down.

When they straggled downstairs, Bobby was in the living room, watching the morning weather report with a mug of coffee in his hand. Dean deposited Sam in a chair at the table and went into the living room.

"Ten goddamn inches," Bobby snapped at him. "Ten inches and I don't have anything but eggs and whiskey in the frigging house."

At the table, Sam pulled himself to his feet, reached across the table top, licked his finger and stuck it in the sugar bowl. He crammed his fingers into his mouth and sucked. Dean cringed. "Sam, knock it off. That's gross."

"I'm hungry." Sam stuck his hand back into the bowl. "I wan' Lucky Charms, Dean."

"We don't have any. Get your hand out of the bowl and sit down."

Sam didn't. "I don't want anymore eggs." The chair rocked as he turned, clutching at the back of it. "I hate eggs. I want-"

"You want pizza for breakfast, Sam?" Bobby cut in. He threw Dean a look that he couldn't quite interpret and rose, hands on knees, wincing. "We've got some leftovers from last night."

Sam hesitated. "You can eat pizza for breakfast?"

"Only if you eat it cold."

Sam scrunched up his face but sat down. Dean watched as Bobby took the cardboard box of pizza from the fridge, slid a piece onto a plate, and offered it to Sam. Sam sniffed at it, then bit off the end and chewed slowly. "Okay, Bobby," he said after a minute. "Okay. I can eat this."

Bobby gave Sam another piece and joined Dean back in the living room. "When's it say this shit's supposed to slow down?" He asked, and Dean started. He hadn't even been looking at the television.

"I don't know. Bobby-"

"As soon as it does, I'm going shopping. Kid's got to eat more than pizza." Bobby sat back on the couch, took up his mug of coffee. He gave Dean a sharp look. "Go watch that brother of yours. I ain't cleaning any more sauce off of my goddamn floor today."

He turned back to the television, his face creased in a scowl, and Dean went back into the kitchen, where Sam was wiping cold pizza sauce off of his chin with his shirt. Dean took a piece of pizza from the box, propped open the laptop, and clicked on Google.

The storm raged on throughout the day and the night. When morning finally broke, it was clear and calm. Bobby woke Dean a little after eight to tell him he was going to the grocery store, and Dean took a second to be appreciative before falling back asleep. They'd eaten pizza for two meals yesterday, and if he had to endure it one more meal, he thought, he'd vomit.

Sam didn't feel the same way. Dean fed him the last piece for breakfast while Bobby was gone, then forced himself woodenly through the process of making Sam shower, of getting him dressed, of making him brush his teeth and put on his sneakers. He slogged through a hundred rapid fire questions: "Can we go outside today, Dean?" "How come you got to put your socks one an' then your sneakers?" "How many more minutes till lunch, Dean?" "Tonight, can I sleep on the couch with the television?"

Why, he thought desperately, did children talk so much? Had Sam asked this many questions the first time? He wished he could remember.

Eventually, he got Sam on the couch with that stupid sponge on the television before venturing to the basement with a load of laundry. He dumped the armful in, poured in the detergent, and cranked the knob around. He was a little irritated to find that he was humming that song, the one about the pineapple under the sea-

Upstairs, the phone rang. Dean ignored it for a moment, then stiffened as he heard the couch above his head creak, small feet pound the floor. He slammed the lid on the washing machine and took the stairs two at a time, cresting the top just in time to see Sam haul himself into a chair against the wall and pluck the receiver marked "FBI" off of the cradle.

"Hello!" He said brightly, and Dean snatched the phone from his hand, crashed it against the receiver with a force that startled even him. Sam shrank against the chair back, his eyes wide, and Dean turned on him with a ferocity that he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, wasn't fair.

"Who told you to answer the phone?" He snapped, and Sam blinked watery eyes, opened his mouth soundlessly. Dean continued, his voice rising: "You don't just touch _shit_, Sam. You don't answer the phone, you don't open the door, you don't-"

The phone rang again, the one marked FBI, and Dean swept Sam off of the chair, dropped him on the floor in the living. Sam clawed earnestly at his arm. "Dean-"

No one could find out, Dean thought suddenly. There were the demons and the angels and beyond that, there were hunters with chips on their shoulders, a couple crazies who still put stock in the words of men like Gordon Walker, men who remembered Steve Wandell and the stupid sweeping tales of the Boy King and Lilith-

"Dean, it might be Daddy." Sam was crying, big tears that squeezed out of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, dripped off his chin. "Dean, it might be Daddy."

It wasn't Daddy, Dean wanted to scream. It would never, ever be Daddy. Why didn't Sam know this? Why couldn't he just _know_?

The phone continued to ring. Dean tried not to think about who was on the other end, some nameless hunter waiting desperately for Bobby's help, someone else he was letting down, someone else he could save but wasn't going to. He put the thought out of mind and focused on the matter at hand, on what needed to be taken care of. Sam had to understand, he thought. He had to make him understand. He had to keep his brother safe.

He caught Sam's chin in his hand, used his thumbs to rub away the tears, steady Sam's head. "Sam, don't touch the phone, you hear me? If it rings, you let it ring. You don't touch the phone or the computer and you don't answer the door. You got me?" Sam cried harder, open mouthed and gasping, and Dean knelt in front of his brother. He hardened his voice. "Sam, you hear me? Knock that off and answer me."

He needed a confirmation, needed to know that Sam got it, that Sam understood. He could only protect Sam as much as Sam let him. He'd learned that over the years. He waited a beat, then said again, "You don't touch the phone again. You understand?"

Sam nodded, hiccupping. He pulled his face away from Dean's fingers and went to the couch, where he buried his face in the cushions and sobbed, tiny shoulders heaving, arms shaking. Dean looked away. It had been twenty two years since he'd been forced to watch four year old Sammy cry, and it was harder to stomach now than it had been then.

The phone was still ringing. He went to it and pulled the line from the wall. In the sudden silence, Sam's sobs reverberated.

xxxx

Bobby came home with a trunk full of groceries- bread and peanut butter, apple juice, Oreos, hamburgers and beer and sweet, sweet Lucky Charms…

Dean helped Bobby tote the paper bags through the snow covered yard, helped him unload them onto the kitchen table. Sam was still in the living room, watching the television with sullen red-rimmed eyes. He hadn't spoken a word to Dean in the hour and a half since he'd answered the phone.

"The kid okay?" Bobby asked as he opened the fridge, and Dean felt that band of heat around his chest loosen. Bobby he could trust; Bobby would help-

"I yelled at him." Dean shrugged, juggled a can of chili between his hands. "He answered your phone."

Bobby's eyes shot to the wall. Dean watched him trace the row of phones, frown at the cord dangling from the FBI one. "Who was it?"

"Dunno." Dean coughed. This was a lot for Bobby, he thought- and it wasn't fair. Bobby shouldn't have to be saddled with their shit. "Bobby- how'm I supposed to keep this quiet? I mean, here- you're sort of a headquarters. You get a lot of people through here-"

"Rufus is spreading the rumor that I'm sick." Bobby turned his back, began stacking boxes of powdered potatoes and cans of gravies in a cabinet. "Moron's telling people I got prostate cancer or some shit like it." He hooked Dean with a sharp glance. "Close your mouth, boy. You didn't think I was risking your brother, did I? I know as well as you the kind of rep he's built up over the last few years. Ain't anybody taking a shot at him on my land."

Dean closed his mouth. "Bobby-"

"What you got to decide, Dean, is what you're going to do about it." Bobby closed the cabinet, sharpened his eyes to Dean's. "You're gonna keep searching for an answer, I know, but in the mean time? You can leave him here, you want to get back out into hunting, sure, but.."

He let the sentence hang between them. Dean knew what was waiting on the end of it: another jab at John, another reminder that his father would have done the same thing – had done the same thing. The job before all else, right? It took Dean only a second to reminisce, to remember how much he had hated his father for it, how much Sam had. Suppose this took longer than he thought to fix Sam? Was that what he was going to do- dump Sam and jump back into the hunt, saddle him with another lifetime of anger and resentment? He had never abandoned Sam. He'd left when he was asked to, he'd let Sam go when he had needed to- but he had never walked out on his baby brother, and he wouldn't now.

"I can't." Dean fixed his eyes on his hands, on the can of chili he was white knuckling. In the living room, that stupid frigging pine apple song was on again. "I won't leave him, Bobby. Not till we fix him. You know that."

Bobby knew. Sam was Dean's crucifix. He cleared his throat, said softly, "Boy- people are gonna come asking, you know that."

"I know." His head was swimming. He turned, caught sight of Sammy drowsing on the couch in the living room, chin tucked against his chest, eyes half lidded, and felt something inside of him wrench. "Tell them- tell them we're dead, or something."

Bobby looked startled. "Dean-"

"Tell them Sam Winchester's dead," Dean said in a hard voice. "Tell them Sammy's dead and I'm off the deep end and you- you're broken hearted or you're sick or whatever, but I don't want any questions. I don't want anyone nosing around, stirring something up for Sam. I don't want him to know."

Bobby hesitated, then nodded slowly. He didn't need to ask what Dean didn't want Sam to know. He got him, understood and embraced him in ways that John never had, in waters that John had never even bothered to test. Monsters and demons and those things that go bump in the night- they could stay the stuff of childhood nightmares for the time being. Dean would make sure of that. He could do better, he thought in a moment of sudden and startling enlivenment, for Sammy than John had ever been able to.

His sudden burst of optimism ended with an afternoon snow shower that turned to sleet, then freezing rain. Dean sat at on the couch, scrolling through website after website on the laptop, and tried to drown out the stupid high pitched squeak of the talking sponge on the television. He wished Sam would turn it off, but there was nothing else for a child to do in Bobby's house but possibly maim himself on a sword or something, so he didn't bother to press the issue.

"When can we go outside?" Sammy asked. Dean looked up and caught sight of him, miserably twisting the hem of that blue blanket between his fingers and sniffling. He still hadn't forgiven him for yelling at him earlier, Dean knew. He sighed.

"Sammy- it's icy outside-"

"So?" Sam scowled at his feet. "How come you always say no? I just wanna play, Dean."

Dean didn't think he even remembered how to play. It had been years since playing was something that didn't involve sex or women or poker. He stared at Sam, watched as his little brother's face flushed, then hardened, then crumpled.

"Maybe Bobby could play with me," he said sadly, and dragged himself off of the couch and into the kitchen in search of him. Dean waited until he heard his small footsteps mounting the stairs before he turned off the television. He half thought about going after Sam, but there was really only so much whiny brother he could take in one day, so he flipped open the laptop and opened the Google page.

Bobby found him an hour and a half later, still on the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table. He was alone. "Trickster," he barked, and Dean sat up, blinking. The laptop slid off of his lap onto the couch cushion.

"Jesus Christ," he said. Why hadn't he thought of that?

Bobby threw him a sideways smirk. "Still just me, boy," he said, and Dean rolled his eyes, hauled himself to his feet.

"Why the hell haven't we thought of this before?" He asked, and Bobby shrugged, side-stepped into the kitchen.

"We've been looking at the obvious things, that's why," he replied. "We're so hung up on these angels and demons and –"

"Witches." Dean shuddered. Bobby nodded at him, popped open a cabinet door.

"And witches," he agreed. "Point is, we've been so hooked on them that we haven't stopped to consider some of the other possibilities.

Dean followed him into the kitchen, his mind churning. "It could work. It could have-"

They hadn't seen hide or tail of the trickster for over a year, Dean thought. Not since that job at the Mystery Spot, where, if he was honest with himself, he didn't really remember that much happening. There was a whole segment of time that was cut out of his brain- a whole stretch that belonged entirely to Sam. He had only ever been able to weasel so much out of his brother, except-

"He hunted him," Dean said slowly. Bobby was running the faucet, a scratched metal pot underneath it. "He hunted the Trickster for six months-"

"Hunted," Bobby interrupted, "And never caught."

Dean blinked. He had never heard that before. "What do you mean, he never caught him? Of course he caught him. How else did he get me back?"

_You were dead_, that whisper niggled. _For six months- for four months- you rotted while Sam worked without you- what gives you the right to think you know what your brother is capable of doing?_

Bobby eyed him heavily, warily. "Sam never told you?" When Dean shook his head, he sighed, twisted the faucet off, hefted the filled pot onto the stove top. "Trickster tricked him into meeting. He thought it was me."

"Why'd he have to be tricked to meet you?" Dean asked. He curled his hands into fists, drummed them against his thighs. "It seems like every chance he got, he was ready to be off, to fuck us all-"

"Boy, you gotta remember one thing and one thing only," Bobby cut in brusquely. "That little boy sleeping upstairs is not that Sam. You hear me?"

Dean paced, agitated. "I know-"

"I don't think you do." Bobby's eyes had that steely flint to them again. Dean was so sick of seeing that there, of seeing that directed at him.

"Don't tell me what I do know or don't know," he snapped. "I can think for myself, Bobby. I might be screwing everything else to hell, but don't you try to tell me what I do or don't know about Sammy, okay?"

The words hung heavy and cold in the air. Bobby's face wilted, his eyes drooping. He sighed, ran a hand over his rusty beard. "Dean, boy- I ain't telling you how to feel about this situation, okay? I know it's not fair. I get that. You don't deserve this, Sam don't deserve this- but you gotta keep something in mind, okay?"

Bobby's tone was careful, placating. Dean sighed, raked a hand over his eyes, his temples, his chin. "What's that, Bobby?"

"Sam doesn't know a damn thing about anything. Not just about your father, or about the business – he doesn't know a thing about himself. He don't know the Yellow-Eyed-Demon or his powers or what he's done, what he might be able to do. He doesn't know about who he was. He's got no idea who Jess is, who Ruby is- Dean, he barely even understands what happened to your mother. To Sam, she was just four years ago. His daddy was alive last week." Bobby's voice lilted. "Dean, you can't go carrying around that anger, aiming it at him. He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't know you like this. He doesn't know the weight you're carrying. To him, you're still just the big brother that plays outside with him, the brother that chases away his bad dreams and gets him on the bus in the morning, For a long time, you were that kid's whole goddamn world. Don't go shattering that for him right now. He hasn't got anything else to hold onto."

Whenever things had gotten rough for him, had gotten bad, Sam had been the well he drew out of, the shadow he slept easy under. When Sam was gone at Stanford, Dean had, in his darkest and loneliest moments, feasted on the memories: he and Sam huddled under forts built on motel room couches; he and Sam sliding on stocking feet across this same kitchen linoleum; he and Sam side by side in the backseat of the Impala, lying with their heads touching, distant stars burning their eyes through the back window. For everything that John's paramilitary lifestyle had served to sever in them- stability at school, hopes for a future outside of demons and monsters- it had given them each other. Dangerously co-dependent, Henrickson had called them. Connected, he thought, was a better term. Tethered, anchored, allied- these were better terms, better words that defined what Sam was to him, what he was to Sam, what they were together.

He had never been very good at much besides being there for Sam. From day one, that had been the task he assigned himself, the goal he structured himself around. He was all Sam had, he thought. Sam was missing a whole chunk of himself- a piece that needed to be filled in, smoothed over, solidified by Dean. That was his job. Sam has always been his job.

Bobby had his back to him. He was breaking spaghetti over the pot of water, now boiling on the range. "There're some notes in the trunk," Dean told him. "A red notebook. Sam did a lot of writing in it after the Mystery Spot. Might be something in there about the Trickster."

Bobby glanced over his shoulder at him. "You think it's a good chance it might be him?" He asked, and Dean stood, stretched, headed for the stairs.

"We don't have anything else to go off of," he called back. He took the stairs two at a time, his stomach lurching with every step. He knew what he was going to do, he realized, without actually making the decision. Even so, dread anchored itself in his gut, spread out cold fingers until every step hurt, until he thought he was going to vomit.

He found Sam not in the room they had been sharing, but lying eagle spread on Bobby's own bed. He was barefooted, that old blue blanket knotted around his neck like a cape, his hair flattened against his forehead while he slept, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. Dean eased himself down beside the tiny body, tensing when Sam stirred, when a hand grappled momentarily against his knee before falling still. Dean leaned against the headboard and watched his brother sleep, followed the rhythmic up and down of his chest underneath that red hoodie, traced the milky blue veins under the tissue thin skin of his eye lids. He didn't remember Sam looking so young before, so carefree, so innocent. He waited a few more minutes, then reached out a hand and shook Sammy.

"Sam? Sammy? Sammy." Sam's eyes blink muzzily open, wander lazily until they fix on Dean's face. Dean shook him again. "Come on, dude- rise and shine. Eggs and bacon."

"I don't like eggs," Sam mumbled. It came out as after nap slobber, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. Dean grimaced, then reached over and tapped Sam's forehead when his eyes drifted close again.

"You slept long enough. Come on. I need to talk to you."

Instantly, Sam was on high alert. He scrunched his shoulders together, furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously, slid his hands under his armpits. "I didn't do anything," he defended petulantly, and Dean sighed.

"Sam- do you remember the night in the motel room? Where we stayed before we came here?"

"The other day?"

"Yeah."

Sam stuck a finger in his mouth, sputtered around it: "Yeah. How come? Do we gotta go back?"

"Maybe." Dean paused, ran his tongue over his lips. Sam cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes at him. "Sam- that night before- before I woke up and called Bobby- was there anyone else there?" Someone he hadn't seen, something that had somehow slipped past his radar, gotten to his brother. "Anyone?"

Sam's eyes darkened. "No. Just you."

"You sure?"

"I don't wanna go back though." Sam twisted over onto his stomach, buried his face in the mattress. "I like it here. Bobby's gonna give me a car in his yard to play in. He said I could plant flowers in the tires."

Dean rolled his eyes. Trust Bobby to put an idea like that in Sam's head. "Flowers don't go in tires, Sam."

"They can if the tires don't work, Dean." Sam glared at him out of the corner of his eye. "Bobby told me."

Bobby's word is law. _His_ word is law. Dean felt his stomach rising. He hesitated, then reached over, splayed a hand on Sam's back. "Sammy, sit up, okay? I need to talk to you."

Sam rolled to his knees, worked at the knot of blanket around his neck before plopping back down against the pillow. He crossed his legs, one over the other, and stared at Dean with an intensity that he wasn't prepared for. Dean flinched away from it, tried to find words for what he was going to say. His mouth was cottony, his tongue thick.

"Sammy- you remember anything before the other night?" he asked, and Sam shrugged.

"Just you," he said simply. "And Daddy. And Uncle Bobby's, the time we put a nest in the front of his blue truck-"

"Anything else?" Dean remembered the birds nest. He couldn't have been any older than seven. "Anything at all?" When Sam shook his head, he added, softer: "Anything about Mom, Sam?"

Sam shrugged again, but it was less casual. There was a heaviness to his movements, a deliberate slowness. He fiddled with his fingers. "Daddy said she's dead. He said the fire ate her up when I was a baby." He looked up at Dean and his eyes were suddenly liquid, dark pools of raw fear and childlike grief. "Dean, how come Daddy doesn't call? When can he come home?"

The words blurred, sharpened to pinpricks in Dean's throat. How was he supposed to do this? He was barely at terms with his father's death, with what John had done for him- how did he tell Sammy this? Why did he think he could just waltz in and break Sammy's world into pieces? There were no words, he thought fuzzily, no words at all to convey this sort of message. He forced himself to look at Sammy, to acknowledge the fear and faith lurking behind those puppy dog eyes. He reached over again, folded his hand over Sam's knee. It swallowed his leg whole.

"Sammy, man," he said, and the words cracked, felt cumbersome and hot on his tongue. "I need you to stop asking about Daddy, okay? I need you to stop looking out for him."

Sam blinked. His mouth was a pink, trembling line. "Is he gonna come home soon, Dean?" He asked, and Dean could have sworn he heard something in there, some hint of resignation, of defeat. He curled his fingers around Sam's knee.

"He isn't, Sammy," he said huskily, and Sam's face opened up like a dam breaking beneath the rage of an early spring flood.

xxxx

Bobby found them later, after Sam had cried himself into some drowsy imitative state of sleep. He stood in his doorway and regarded Dean with an expression mixed somewhere between sorrow and pity. Dean kept his eyes on his feet, concentrated on maintaining his contact with Sam. "Dinner ready?" He asked, and his voice cracked.

Bobby sighed, took a step into the room. "You think we ought to wake him?" He asked, and Dean sighed. He was tired; every inch of him ached, popped and cracked when he moved.

"I guess," he said, but he didn't move. Sam slept against him, his small face swollen and red with the force of his sorrow. It hurt to look at him, but Dean forced himself to, forced himself to remember every terrible moment of the last two hours, every awful question Sam had asked. He needed to remember; he needed something to fuel his search. Sam as a grown man had folded under the loss of his father. Dean was unsure how Sam the child could handle it.

"Did you get the notebook?" He asked, and Bobby shook his head.

"Snowing again." He slapped his hands on his thighs, then turned. "Come on and eat, Dean. Sam can sleep on the couch."

Dean roused himself. He felt as if he were moving through soup, but all the same he got Sam off of the bed and downstairs without incident. He sat at the kitchen table and ate without tasting the spaghetti and meatballs Bobby served.

It was still light when he was done eating, so he slid a coat on, marched across the drift-blanketed lawn to the Impala, where he popped the trunk and searched for Sam's duffel. He carried it into the bedroom he and Sam were sharing, but before he could get a chance to open it he was interrupted by Sam, who materialized suddenly in the doorway, his hair sloppy and his eyes red, his fingers stuck in his mouth.

"You went outside," he said, and Dean blinked. The straps of the duffel were rough against his fingers.

"Yeah," he answered, and Sam's eyes darkened.

"You didn't take me," he said quietly, and Dean shook his head.

"You were sleeping," he told his brother. "I just needed to get something from the Impala, Sammy."

Sam sniffled. He looked away from Dean, down at his feet. "Are you leavin'?" He whispered, and Dean dropped the duffel to the floor, kicked it underneath the bed.

"No," he told Sammy, a little fiercely. "I'm not."

xxxx

Sammy ate a little spaghetti and watched a little television, but by six thirty he was listless and drowsy. Dean took him back upstairs and lay him back in the bed, and, even though it wasn't even seven o'clock yet, he slipped out of his boots, pulled the curtains open against the deepening of the night sky, and lay next to his brother under the blankets.

For a long time they were quiet. Sam wasn't sleeping – Dean could hear him sucking noisily on his fingers- but he didn't move, didn't speak. He hugged himself rigidly to the edge of the bed, so far away that Dean felt the cold build between them in the trench of bed sheets. Finally, when the alarm clock on the nightstand read eight thirty and Bobby could be heard creaking about downstairs, locking doors and flicking off lights, Sam asked:

"Is Daddy dead?"

Sam knew he was dead. Dean closed his eyes, rankled the top of the sheet with his fingers. He found his voice, choked out an answer. "Yes, Sam."

Sam was quiet again, but he shifted. His fingers squished in his mouth; Dean cringed. "Was it a fire, like Mommy?"

On the back of his eyelids, the headlights of a truck beamed into his eyes, threw into sharp relief his father, bleeding in the front seat; Sam's knuckles bleached white against the steering wheel, his jaw tight. _"No, sir. Not everything."_

"No, Sammy. It wasn't."

There were more questions. Dean could feel them, heavy in the air between them, cold and stagnant, poisonous. He felt dangerously close to tears. "Sammy-"

"I'm sorry you miss him, Dean," Sam whispered. A small hand brushed against his arm, anchored itself there. "I'm sorry you don't get to see him now."

Something unknotted, unraveled. Dean rolled over on his side, sought out his brother's eyes in the dim light of the gloaming moon. "Sammy," he said roughly, "It's _not_ your fault."

Once upon a time, it had been his. For a whole two and a half years, the weight of his father had clung to his shoulders, broken his back. Now, for the first time, Dean was grateful for it. He couldn't imagine how John would have handled this situation, how he would have reacted to seeing Sam like this. He reached over, pulled Sammy away from the edge of the bed. On the other side of the bedroom door, Bobby was passing by quietly.

"Think you can sleep?" Dean asked, and Sam shrugged. His eyes were wet.

"I can try."

"Okay." Dean rolled back over. Sam hesitated, then stretched himself out, planted his head underneath his arm. "Just try, okay, Sammy?"

Sam stuck his fingers in his mouth. Tears glimmered on the ends of his eyelashes. "Okay, Dean."

xxxx

Sam sat on the staircase and looked out the front window and sucked his fingers and said very little for two days. He didn't want to watch television, he didn't want to help Bobby with the cooking, he didn't want to explore the house. He sat on the steps and tied his afghan into knots and peered out of the snow dusted glass with dark eyes.

Dean dug the duffel back out from under the bed and went through it. He had never made a habit of going through Sam's things, except for a few times when the situation had absolutely warranted it. He did it remotely, in a detached sort of way. His fingers were cold as they unzipped the duffel, rummaged through the wads of t-shirts and jeans and socks that were the trappings of Sam's entire life.

He found the red notebook at the bottom, underneath a couple of paperbacks with wilting covers – _The Sound and the Fury, East of Eden, Civil Disobedience. _There were a few other things in there, some other personal effects of Sam's, but Dean let them lie. They weren't his business, not yet. When Sam came back he thought he'd like to give Sam some assurance that his privacy hadn't been breached.

The notebook was dog eared and limp in his hands. One end of the wire spiraling was coming undone. Dean forced it back through the holes, knicking his fingertip in the process. He slid the notebook underneath his pillow for later and went back downstairs, stepping over Sam, who didn't even bother looking at him.

He found Bobby in the den, running a damp rag over the edges of a bookshelf. Dean cocked an eyebrow at him. "Are you _cleaning_?"

Bobby threw him an irritated look. "Someone's got to." He twisted the rag between his hands, rolled his shoulders. "Listen, that kid can't sit on those steps forever."

Dean glared at him. "Well, what am I supposed to do? I can't make him move."

Bobby snorted. "Can't make him move? Boy- he's four years old." He turned his back to Dean, swiped the rag across another shelf. "You find that notebook?"

"Yeah."

"Anything in it we can use?"

"I haven't read it yet." There were stacks of books on Bobby's desk. Dean rifled through them idly, ran his fingers over the gilt plated titles on the spines: _Demi Gods Big and Little; Ancient Egyptian Religions; The Mystery of Changelings and Children._ Dean tapped that one. "Changelings, Bobby?"

Bobby grunted. "Just keeping an open mind, son." He moved from the shelf to the windowsill, brushed back the curtains. "It ain't snowing so hard anymore."

Dean shrugged. Bobby continued: "Listen, you can't let him sit there and stew. It ain't good for him. It ain't gonna help him heal. What's he looking out for anyways?"

"I'll be damned if I know," Dean muttered. Bobby swung a fierce look around to him.

"Have you bothered asking?" He demanded, and Dean felt his shoulders tighten. He placed the books back onto the table with more force than was necessary and moved back out into the hallway. Sam looked at him uneasily. His fingers were in his mouth again; his knuckles were purpled and bitten.

"What're you waiting for, Sam?" Dean asked, rougher than he meant to. Sam blinked at him, shrugged one shoulder. His hair fanned across his eyes.

"Maybe someone is gonna come, Dean," he said in a small voice, and Dean had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming: _No one is coming, Sam. No one!_

Instead, he ordered, "Get your fingers out of your mouth, Sam." Sam popped his fingers out, wiped them on his blanket. Dean cringed. Sam was watching him, his eyes dark and resentful, and Dean glared at him. "What's that look for?"

Sam rolled his eyes, stuck his fingers back in his mouth, and glued his eyes on the window. Dean stood there in the hallway and clamped down on the sudden burning in his chest, on the swelling tide of anger in his stomach. _This_, he thought, was going nowhere.

Out the front window the world was white and still, the sky grey, the trees black and barren. It was hardly snowing. Dean went back into the study, where Bobby had abandoned his cleaning rag for a wad of old newspaper and a bottle of Windex. "Sam says you said he could have a car in the yard."

Bobby shrugged, chuckled. "Yeah, I suppose I did."

"Any car?"

"Any of the junkers out back. Don't touch nothing in the garage or front." Bobby shot Dean a look over his shoulders, his eyes knowing, and Dean left the study, strode over to the staircase, and hauled Sam up off of the steps.

"Let's go outside," he said, and Sam's eyes brightened. He turned and bounded ahead of Dean up the stairs, using his hands to climb. Dean picked up the afghan off of the floor and followed.

Sam didn't have boots, just those red high-top sneakers Bobby had bought for him, but Dean forced another pair of socks over Sam's feet and laced the sneakers as tight at they would go. He put another shirt on Sam, then his hoodie, then the less than substantial parka Bobby had found for him. Sam hopped from one foot to the other as Dean hunted around in the drawers of the dressers in the room, finally emerging with a pair of black wool mittens, coated with dust. Dean slapped them clean and crammed Sam's hands into them. They were much too big; Sam shook his hand, sent one flying, and laughed. The sound of it broke Dean's heart.

He found an old beanie in another drawer and a scarf in the closet. After Sam was successfully smothered by the clothing, Dean pulled on his jacket and towed his brother downstairs, where Bobby had moved with the Windex from the study to the kitchen. He turned as they trundled by.

"Just the junkers," he told Dean, but there was no heat in his voice. Dean nodded. Sam was at the door, trying unsuccessfully to turn the knob in his too big gloves. Dean swept him aside and pulled it open.

It was snowing again, but a soft, gentle fall that sifted lazily from the grey sky. The world around them was muffled under a heavy blanket of white: cars were tall white drifts, the roof of the garage melted into the sky. Dean stepped off the porch, one hand on Sam's shoulder, listened to the crunch of the ground beneath his boots, the soft sigh of the empty tree branches shivering in the wind. Beside him, Sam knelt and shoved a fistful of snow into his mouth.

Dean jerked him back. "Knock it off. That's disgusting."

Sam ducked out of Dean's grasp, squinted up at him. "It's okay. S'not yellow. See?" He scooped another handful of snow up, offered it to Dean. Dean stepped past him, shivering. He was a little disorientated by the quiet of the yard; he had this sudden, eerie feeling that the rest of the world had dropped away and there was nothing left but this, a handful of naked trees and snow dredged piles of broken cars and the sagging old farmhouse-

Small hands plied at the front of his coat. It was Sam, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, sniffling as he fumbled with the zipper of Dean's leather coat. His mittens lay, abandoned and wet, at his feet. Dean growled. "Sam-"

"You gotta put up your sipper, Dean. You could get a cold."

Dean brushed away Sam's straining hands, pulled the zipper of his coat up to his chin, and bent at the wait to retrieve Sam's mittens from the snow. "Sammy, man, you have to keep these on." He slid them, one at a time, back over Sam's hands. Sam wiggled.

"They're too big, Dean." He shook one arm, sent one arching back into the snow. Dean felt his pulse pound heavily behind his eyes.

"Sam-"

Sam shook his other hand, knocked the other one loose, and laughed until he was bent double. The sound reverberated around the quiet yard.

Dean forced Sam's hands back into the mittens. "Keep them on, okay?" He said. "Or we go inside. Capiche?"

"What's that?" Sam asked, and Dean stood, started across the yard. He was halfway to the garage before he realized that Sammy wasn't with him. He turned back, watched his little brother struggle from foot print to foot print, stepping wide, his arms swung out a loft for balance. He toppled over a few times; by the time he reached Dean his jeans were caked with snow and he was sweating. He leaned against Dean's legs and looked up at him with beseeching brown eyes.

"Can you make smaller steps, Dean?" He asked. "I got to walk where you go."

Dean's chest tightened. He coughed. "Just stay behind me, Sammy."

"Okie dokie, Dean-o," Sam chirped happily. He followed close behind Dean, his hand hovering over the back of Dean's thigh, breathing heavily as he labored to step inside each of Dean's prints.

"Want me to carry you?" Dean asked, and Sam snipped:

"I'm not a baby, Dean."

It took a painstakingly long time to make it to Bobby's back lot. Sam had to stop to rest, to pick up his dropped mittens, to peel a frozen leaf off of the trunk of a tree, to throw a snowball at Dean, to ring the garage's door bell, to eat another handful of snow…

The back lot was long and wide; buried cars rose like snow topped mountains all around them. Dean nudged Sam, pointed. "There. Pick your car." Sam blinked slowly at him; Dean bit off a sigh of annoyance. "Bobby said you could pick a car. Pick one."

"I can't have one'a these," Sam said. "They got snow all over 'em."

"We can clean it off."

Sam gave him a sideways look, his beanie shadowing his eyes. "Are you sure we can?" He asked, and Dean sighed, nodded, rubbed his hands together to get some blood flowing back into them. It was _freezing._

"Yes. Hurry up. It's cold."

Sam grinned wildly and scampered away. The snow rose past his thigh in some parts of the yard; Dean followed behind, clapping his hands together and dislodging Sam when needed. Sam moved cautiously from car to car, rubbing small circles into the door panels to get a glimpse of the car underneath. "I gotta get a black car, Dean," he told him. "So we could match."

Finally, they found one: a long, low slung black Cutlass that was sinking under the weight of age and snow. Dean helped Sam rub the door panel to the driver side clean; Sam looked anxiously up at him, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. "Is this a good car, Dean?" He asked, and Dean paused at the nervous energy of the request.

"Yeah, Sammy," he said. "It is."

Sam considered this a moment, then nodded briskly. "Could you see the tires, Dean?"

Dean blinked. "The tires? Why?"

"For the flowers," Sam said with exaggerated patience, like Dean was missing something important here. Dean wasn't sure what the hell kind of rubric he needed to evaluate the tires by for _flowers_, but he knelt anyways, wiped away the snow with numbed fingers. Sam watched him closely. "How come you don't got mittens?" He asked, and Dean growled:

"I just don't."

"You want to use mine?" Sam shuffled in closer, put his head close to the frozen whitewall of the tire. "These are okay for flowers, Dean?"

He was going to kill Bobby for telling Sam he could plant flowers in a fucking tire. He stood, stuffed his frozen, wet hands into his armpits, and snapped, "They're perfect."

Sam's mouth flattened, trembled. "You could help me," he offered quietly, and Dean had to close his eyes. This Sam was not _that _Sam; this precocious four year old was not the brother he had spent the better part of the last four months fighting with, snapping at. Why couldn't he get that? He opened his eyes, forced himself to look at Sam, small, wind battered Sam with snot running down his face and his head swamped with an oversized beanie and jeans soaked with snow.

"Yeah, Sammy," he said, but it was hard to put anything into it, anything at all. "But not now, okay?" He wanted to go back inside, but the idea of spending another afternoon chasing his tail and watching Sam diminish on those steps was too much. He reached past his brother, yanked on the door handle of the old Cutlass. The door protested but opened with a metallic scream; inside, the upholstery was spotted with damp and the floorboards were littered with leaves. Dean gestured to it.

"Hop in, Sammy."

Sam stepped closer. "Can I sit with the steering wheel, Dean?" He asked, and Dean forced himself to smile, even though his face felt frozen.

"It's your car, man."

Sam grinned and climbed in. Dean shut the door behind him, trudged around the car to the other side, let himself into the passenger seat. In the driver's side, Sam was on his knees, his tiny fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, making guttural noises in his throat. His mittens sat on the cold leather seat next to him; his head barely topped the dashboard. He gave Dean a commanding look and sniffled. "You got to put on your seatbelt, Dean." He added, uncertainly, "This is my car, okay?"

The seatbelt was stiff as a board; it snapped out of its holding when Dean pulled on it. Dean tossed it into the back seat when Sam wasn't looking. He jammed his hands between his thighs. "Put your mittens back on," he ordered Sam. Sam made a high pitched screaming noise and jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right. The mittens lay forgotten between them.

After a while, Sam fell silent. He stuck his arms through the steering wheel and got to work pressing the speedometer, the trip reset, the gas tank pop. He cranked the radio dial as far as it would go, slid the FM and AM adjusters wildly up and down. Dean watched him with a mute feeling of disattachement. Sam had used to play with the Impala like this too, when he was little, before-

"How come Bobby gave this to me?" He asked, and Dean snapped back to reality.

"I don't know," he said impatiently. _Why do you think I have all of the answers?_

Sam bit his lip, looked pointedly away from Dean. "Did Daddy give you the Impala?" He asked in a trembling voice, and Dean coughed into his fist, past the thickening in his throat.

"Yeah," he said. Sam frowned.

"How come Daddy didn't give me anything?" He asked sadly, and Dean almost opened his mouth, almost told Sam that that wasn't true, but the lie closed up in his throat. It was true, he thought; all of the possessions John Winchester had left behind - his car and his jacket and his journal - they were his, Dean's. Sam had never had anything to remember by except what John had taught them growing up, and he didn't even have that anymore.

Sam poked at the horn, tentatively. Nothing happened. "Did Daddy give me to you?" He asked, and Dean closed his eyes against a sudden burst of memory: a burning bedroom, blonde hair trailing from the ceiling, his brother's body rigid as he pulled him from the flames-

"No," he said thickly. "I kind of- I took you."

Sam looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Am I kidnapped?" He asked suspiciously, and Dean laughed, choking, his eyes wet.

"No, Sammy," he assured him. "You're not kidnapped. It's all legal."

Sam frowned at the steering wheel. "You know what I was waiting for, Dean?" He asked. When Dean said nothing, he took a deep breath and burst out, "I was waitin' for someone to get me. For the orphanage."

Dean shook his head. "Sam-"

"'Cause I get to be an orphan now, Dean. Like Annie." Sam looked at him, and his chin was trembling. "Is someone goin' t'come take me?"

Dean shook his head. He was angry, suddenly, hot and cold at once. When the fuck had Sammy watched _Annie_, anyways? "Sam, no one's going to take you. Me and Bobby- we've got you, okay?"

Sam nodded immediately, his face creased with sudden relief. "Okay, Dean. That's okie dokie with me." He picked up his mittens, held them out to Dean. "Can you help me?" He asked, and Dean blinked against the burning in his eyes, in his throat. He fitted the mittens back over Sam's hands, pulling them tight.

"You ready to go inside, Sam?" He asked, and Sam nodded, slithered across the seat to where Dean sat, waited until the door was forced open and Dean was out in the cold before jumping out himself, landing with a small _poof! _in the freshly laundered snow.

"Can I show Bobby my car?" He asked, and Dean nodded, followed sluggishly behind his bounding brother as they made their way back across the yard. Sam's head bobbed up and down as he moved from foot print to foot print; he was whistling that stupid pineapple song.

_We've got to get him to watch something else_, Dean said to himself, and the thought hurt. _We've got to get him back._

xxxx

That night, Dean took out the red notebook. He cracked it open while Sammy breathed evenly into the pillow beside him and in the dim yellow glow of the bedside lamp, he began to read.


	3. Chapter 3: The Dark Side of the Moon

_**Disclaimer: I wish.**_

_Again, a huge thanks to all of you that are following- old and new! As always, I hope you guys continue to enjoy the story. It's been a growing experience for me, writing this 'verse on such a long term scale, so I hope you'll forgive any inconsistencies or blunders on my part. I've really been having a great time writing this, and I'm souped to hear that you're all having a great time reading it. I hope you guys continue to provide feedback, good or bad! I really love to hear what you all are thinking Thanks!_

**Chapter Three: The Dark Side of the Moon**

The first page in the notebook was wrinkled, the lines of pencil scrawl smudged and black. There was a date at the top, written in Sam's sloping lilt. _March 16, 2007._

Dean leafed through the notebook, blinking at the words that leaped out at him. Some of the pages were torn, most crumpled, some stained with what Dean guessed was blood. He brushed his fingers over the coppery brown spots that peppered the pages. Beside him, Sam stirred; he shuddered and moved on.

He strained to remember when they had been there, in Broward County. February 2008….he skimmed rapidly through the pages, keeping track of the dates as they flew by. Towards the middle of the notebook, he paused on February 2, 2008-

All the pages after it were torn out. A thick, jagged sheaf of ripped paper was all that was left. Dean flipped in a panic to the next full page: March 1, 2008. Nothing about the Mystery Spot. Nothing about the Trickster. Nothing about anything that could mean anything at all.

Dean closed the notebook, shut his eyes against the headache building. There was so much _nothing_, he thought angrily. There was so little he could do, so little he or Bobby had found that gave them even a little hope that anything could be done at all-

"Dean?"

Dean opened his eyes. Sam stared blearily up at him, one hand with fingers wormed through his hair, the other hand stuck in his mouth. Dean reached over, plucked them out. "Go to sleep," he ordered Sam, and Sam rolled over, stuffed his head underneath his pillow. Dean slid the notebook off of the bed, onto the floor, and turned off the light.

xxxx

Dean waited until the next afternoon when Sam was downstairs "helping" Bobby make dinner before he pulled the duffel out from under the bed and emptied it in a pile atop the faded patchwork quilt.

There had to be _something_, he thought desperately. He and Bobby could track the Trickster themselves, sure, but without even a little to begin with, to go off of, how long was that going to take? How long was Sam supposed to stay this way? And better yet- how the hell were he and Bobby supposed to go traipsing after this guy with a kid in tow? They couldn't just lock Sam in the Impala and leave him while they went off searching through abandoned warehouses or staking out some lair in the woods, like John had done. That was a different time, Dean thought grimly, a different time and a different hunt and a different Sam.

Dean went in a hurry through the duffel, throwing clothes – jeans and mismatched socks and t-shirts that were inhumanly large- to one side, tossing toiletries to another. There were a handful of weapons, some smaller knives and shurrikens and a couple flares; a couple books, a hunting magazine, a manila folder full of old newspaper clippings from Palo Alto from the week Jess had died. Dean pawed through the books he had found the day before. In the front cover of _The Sound and the Fury _ he found a faded photograph of Sam and Jess, grinning, with their faces pressed together and their hair whipping across their eyes, the background a rolling green sea and cloudy grey sky. On the back, someone had scrawled in curling pink ink: _Jess & Sam, November 18, 2004. Happy six months, buddy!_

Dean stuffed the picture back into the book, laid it gently aside, and blinked against the sudden stinging in his eyes before turning back to the rest of the items. There was nothing in either of the other books, save an old fake CDC ID that Dean assumed he had been using as a bookmark. There was not that much left to shuffle through, except for a small leather bag that held a razor and some blades, a bag of medication, a couple old burner phones and a black leather folded that yielded Sam's highschool diploma, his Stanford acceptance letter, a slew of report cards and transcripts that dated back to the mid nineties. There was a picture of Sam and Dean as children, sitting grinning on the hood of the Impala with the sun glimmering off of the edge of a red desert plateau behind them, and an envelope with a ripped top and a return address marked Sioux Falls. There was nothing, nothing at all that would have fit the missing pages in the notebook.

Dean jammed the stuff back into the duffel, zippered it and slung it into the closet so hard that the wall shook. He sat on the edge of the bed, stuffed his fists into his eyes, watched the red spots swarm, his vision blurred-

Downstairs, a chair scraped, a cabinet slammed, a pot crashed. Sam laughed. Dean buried his mouth in his palm to stifle his scream.

xxxx

"I'm taking it you found nothing," Bobby said. He was standing in the doorway to the basement, where Dean was straggling up the steps, a load of laundry in his arms. Sam was building a fort out of books in the study; it was after dinner and the wind was blowing against the house with enough force to rattle the windows.

"Nothing," Dean said shortly. He pushed past Bobby, stopped in the doorway to the study. Sam was a small speck surrounded by stacks of heavy tomes. He looked up at Dean.

"You wanna come in my fort?" He asked. "I could make it bigger. You could fit too."

"It's bed time," Dean told him. He felt stupid saying it. When Sam only blinked up at him, he added, louder, "Now."

Sam hopped over the books and darted ahead of Dean up the stairs, into the bedroom. By the time Dean got there Sam was already half dressed for bed, with pajama top on over his jeans and sneakers. He held out a foot to Dean, wobbling. "Can you do it for me?" He asked, and Dean set the laundry basket heavily on the floor, knelt to fumble with the shoelaces.

Sam kicked off his sneakers and slithered out of his jeans, hoisted himself up onto the bed. He searched among the scattered bedclothes for his afghan. "Dean, is Bobby our uncle?" He asked, and Dean shrugged.

"No," he said, and Sam's face darkened. He shuffled underneath the blankets, covered his face with his afghan.

"How come we call him that?" He asked, and Dean sighed as he pulled off his boots.

"That's just what we call him," he said. "Go to sleep." He clicked off the lamp and left, leaving the door half open.

He went back downstairs, where Bobby was pulling dishes, still dripping, from the dish rack and putting them in the cabinets. "There's nothing in the notebook," he said to his back. "There's a whole bunch of pages ripped out. It skips right over the dates we were in Broward County. I looked through all of his stuff and there's nothing. There's nothing."

He sat at the table; Bobby continued putting the dishes away. The house was silent, save for the screen door banging in the wind and the floor creaking above their head-

"We don't need Sam's notes, Dean," Bobby said at last. He closed the cabinet door firmly, opened another, pulled from it a bottle of Jack. "It would have been nice, sure, but we can do without them."

"Bobby, it's been almost two weeks-"

"I know, son. I know."

They were quiet again. Bobby poured the whiskey into two shot glasses, dropped an ice cube in each. He brought them to the table and sat with a groan. He waited until Dean had drunken his before saying:

"Look, I know it seems like it's taking too long. But you gotta have patience, son. This could take a long time. We've never dealt with something like this before- hell, I've never even heard of it. There isn't going to be any overnight, miracle solution."

Dean poured another glass of liquor, took it down in two burning gulps. "We don't even know if this asshat is the thing that did this to him," he said, and Bobby nodded rapidly, reached for the bottle.

"It might be," he agreed, "Or it might not be. But whether it is or it isn't, he's the only thing I can think of that might have the mojo to fix Sam. Hate to say it, but he's our best shot."

"Our best shot." Dean snorted. The room was spinning. "What the hell is that, anymore?"

He left Bobby sitting alone at the table with the bottle of Jack glowing amber under the single, swinging bulb of the kitchen light, and went to bed.

xxxx

It took two weeks for it to happen, but finally, it did. Bobby plowed up the stairs to the bedroom, where Dean was flipping through yet another slew of Bobby's books, stepped into the doorway, and announced, "I can't take it anymore."

Dean wrinkled his brow. "Take what?" He asked, and Bobby spewed:

"If I have to hear that goddamn sponge laugh like that one more time, that TV is going through the wall."

Dean laughed. Bobby went on, "You need to find something for that kid to do besides watch the tube all day, Dean. His eyes are going to rot out."

He went on into the bathroom and Dean left the pile of the books on the bed, made his way downstairs, where Sam was sitting on the coffee table, his fingers in his mouth and his afghan draped over the top of his head. Dean hesitated, then strode over and snapped the television off. Sam jerked as if he'd been slapped. "Dean!"

"Come on, man," Dean said tiredly. "Watch something else, okay?"

Sam's chin jutted out. "But I like Spongebob," he said in a small voice. Dean sighed, turned the television back on, and cranked the ancient knob around he found the grainy image of a brown skinned, triangle haired girl with a big head and a blue monkey waving at her side.

"Here. Watch this."

Sam scowled. "That's a girls' show, Dean."

"It's not. It's-" He had no idea what the show was. "Just watch it, okay, Sam? No more Spongebob, okay?"

Sam looked at his feet. "How come you can't play with me, Dean?" He asked, and Dean tuned away, stepped out of the room.

"I have work to do, Sam."

_ I have to save you._

xxxx

The show turned out to be Dora the Explorer. Dora the Explorer, as it happened, was worse than Spongebob.

Dean made cheeseburgers for dinner. Cheeseburgers were one of the few things he remembered Sam being okay with eating as a kid. Cheeseburgers and macaroni'n'cheese and Lucky Charms and grilled cheese. Anything cheese, he thought as he scraped the burgers out of the pan, plopped them on the plate. Sam was already at the table, sitting on a stack of car manuals, dipping his fingers in his milk. Dean scowled.

"Sam, stop. That's disgusting."

Sam ignored him. He swirled the milk in his cup in a circle. "Where's Bobby?" He asked. He pulled his finger out, stuck it in his mouth, sniffled.

"He's upstairs." Sleeping, Dean thought with a little envy. He put the plate with the burger in front of his brother. Sam regarded it critically.

"I don't like this," he said. "I want Lucky Charms."

"Lucky Charms are for breakfast," Dean told him. He sat down across from him, picked up his own burger. Sam sniffed at his plate.

"I want Lucky Charms," he said, a little louder. "_Vamanos."_

Dean blinked at him. "What?"

_"Vamanos_." Sam put his finger back in his milk. "It means hurry up."

Dean set his teeth. There was a slow pain traveling from one side of his head to another. "Sam. Get your hands out of your milk and eat the frigging burger, okay?"

Sam glared, but he retracted his finger, licked it clean. Then he lifted the bun off of the burger and poked at it. "It moved," he said, and Dean sighed.

"Sam- Jesus Christ, man, just eat it, okay?"

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What's it got in it?" He asked. He poked it again. "Is it monkey?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yes, Sam," he said sarcastically, "It's a monkey."

Sam sat up, suddenly rigid, his eyes wide. "Boots is a monkey, Dean," he said. There was a high, desperate edge to his voice. "_He's _a monkey!"

Dean had no idea who the hell Boots was, but he had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with Dora. He sighed. "Sam- I'm kidding. It's-it's just a burger, okay?"

Identifying food as animals was a bad thing, he remembered. He'd told Sam that bacon was pigs when he was six or seven and Sam had cried over breakfast for a week straight. He took a bite of his own burger, watched over the table top as Sam studied him suspiciously.

"Is Bobby gonna eat?" He asked at last, and Dean shrugged.

"Sometime, yeah."

Sam dragged his finger across the table, moving it in a wavy line. "Is he sick?" He asked quietly. Dean shrugged.

"I think he's just old," he said jokingly, and Sam turned bright, frightened eyes on him.

"Old like Daddy?" He asked, and Dean choked suddenly. He grappled for his glass of water, coughing; across the table, Sam's chin was trembling.

"Dean?" he asked, softly, and Dean shook his head, swallowed hard against the burning in his throat.

"Sammy," he said, "You don't have to worry about that, okay? Bobby's fine. We're all fine, okay?" The lie was cold on his tongue.

Sam hesitated, then nodded. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, ducked his head. "Okay, Dean-o," he said softly.

xxxx

Dean dreamt that night, long and hard, about a tunnel lined with concrete walls and a cracked brick pathway under his feet. He was running, running as fast as he could, with a burning in his side and a sharp pain spiking in his legs, his back, his head. There was a light ahead, a thin grey mist that gloamed faintly at the end of the tunnel and there was something at his back, something long and dark in the shadows. It rippled over the concrete walls like fluid, lapping at his heels, breathing down his neck-

A scream shattered the night and Dean leapt from sleep, breathing sharply in the cold night air. The moon was huge and pale outside the window, the panes of glass frosted with a thin sheen of ice. Beside him on the bed, Sam was wide eyed and sobbing, his small body shaking, his chest heaving in and out, in and out-

It took him a minute to pull his head from the fog, to realize that the scream was Sam, that there was something wrong with his brother. He reached over, his fingers thick with sleep, pressed the palms of his hands flat against Sam's chest. Sam clung to his hands with a grip that surprised him. He sat up, towed Sam towards him.

"Sam. Sammy, Sammy, man- what's wrong?"

Sam continued to cry. He rolled over, buried his face in his pillow and wept, his shoulders shaking. Dean disentangled his hands, hesitated. He was suddenly at a loss. There was gulf, he thought, a chasm between him and Sammy and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. How do you comfort a four year old?

In the end, he ended up sitting awkwardly against the headboard with one hand on Sam's back. He sat there and listened to his brother's sobs smooth out, shudder into hiccups, felt his wild shaking slow. Finally, the room was silent, save for Sam's sniffles and the whispering of the wind against the window. Dean cleared his throat.

"Sammy?" He said, louder than he meant to. The name bounced around the room. "Sammy? You okay?"

Sam didn't answer, but he rolled over, draped an arm over Dean's thigh. In the thin light of the moon, his eyes were swollen, his nose dripping. Dean hesitated, then slid out from under Sam's arm, went to the closet, where he found a t-shirt and brought it back to the bed. He wiped Sam's face with it.

"You okay?" he said again, and Sam blinked slowly. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, scraped his teeth against his knuckles. Dean pulled them back out. "Sam. Stop it and talk to me."

Sam didn't like direct orders, he remembered belatedly. Sam put his fingers back in his mouth, but he didn't chew this time. He watched Dean with a look in his eyes – wary, fearful - that Dean didn't like. He sat back on the bed, got back under the blanket. It was_ freezing_.

"Listen," he said, after a moment. "You don't have to talk, okay? But you can. If you want. I won't interrupt."

Sam's eyes never left his face. After a long moment, he whispered, around a mouthful of fingers, "I miss Daddy, Dean."

Dean's chest twinged. Without realizing it, he reached over, brushed his hand over Sam's forehead. It was hot, his hair sticky and wet. "I know you do, Sammy," he said huskily. Sam edged closer to him, wormed his fingers into the hem of Dean's t-shirt.

"Sometimes I pretend Bobby is Daddy," he said sadly. "But it's just a stupid lie."

It _was_ a stupid lie, Dean thought angrily. Bobby was not John, no matter how good of a man he was. There were some things that Bobby was that John had never been, but there was a lot that John had been that Bobby wasn't. It wasn't fair that Sam couldn't remember any of those things, that all of the memories Dean had dredged up of their childhood Sam couldn't share in. How much longer, Dean thought desperately, was it going to be this way?

Beside him, Sam stirred. "Are you mad at me?" He asked softly, and Dean shook himself.

"No," he said roughly. "I'm not." He planted his hand back over Sam's hair, frowning. "You feeling okay, Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes. "I wanna sleep," he said petulantly. "Can you lie down, Dean?"

Dean lay back down and Sam crushed himself to his side, wedging his head underneath Dean's arm and his fingers in the collar of his shirt. He fell asleep that way, his face hot against Dean's neck, his breath ragged in the silence of the night. Dean lay awake until the moon slipped out of the window pane and thought about his father.

xxxx

It was the cold that woke him a few hours later.

He came up dully from sleep, groggy, barely awake of a keen burning sensation that tingled his nose, his eyelids, his lips. He groaned and rolled over, took in the time blearily. It was just a few minutes shy of six o'clock. Why was he awake?

It took him a few minutes, but gradually, he became aware of the frigidity of the room. He cursed and sat up. Outside the window, the sky was low and dark, colorless. A thick sheen of falling snow masked the breaking of the day. He breathed out sharply and winced at the cloud that hovered in front of his open mouth. It was freezing.

"Fucking heater," he hissed. Beside him, Sam was moving slowly, rolling his head against the pillow, smacking his lips. His eyes slid open, half-mast; his face was flushed and shiny. Dean leaned over, cupped Sam's face with his palms. He felt as if he were on fire.

"Shit," he swore. Sam's eyes crept open wider. Dean climbed out of the bed, gasping as the floorboards met his feet. He scrambled quickly for his socks, his jeans, his boots, a sweatshirt. Sam sat up, swaddled in layers of blankets, and Dean pointed a finger at him.

"Stay there," he ordered. Sam made a face. Dean raised his voice. "I mean it. Lie back down and stay under the blankets. It's too cold to get up."

"You're up," Sam offered stubbornly, but he lay back down, wiggled until the blankets swathed his face. "Where're y'going, Dean?"

Sam sounded funny, thick and tired. He was drooping already, going limp, his face glistening with sweat. Dean felt something heavy and cold settle in his stomach. "I've got to fix the heater," he told Sam. "Don't get up till I come get you, alright?"

Downstairs, Bobby was in the kitchen, flipping on lights, the coffeemaker. He was grey in the thin light of the early morning. Dean paused in the doorway. "I think you need a new heater, man," he told him, and Bobby shook his head, sighed.

"I know," he said. "Storm coming in too."

"Great," Dean muttered. "Just fucking great."

He found a flashlight in the drawer of the hallway hutch, underneath a box of empty shot gun shells and last week's newspapers. Bobby watched him from the doorway. "Probably just the pilot," he said. Dean grunted.

"Yeah, yeah."

"You need any help?"

"I'm good." He flicked the flashlight on, checked his pockets for his lighter. "Make sure Sam don't get out of bed, okay? It's too goddamned cold."

"He won't." Bobby disappeared back into the kitchen. Dean opened the basement door and gasped in the shock of cold air that hit him. He fumbled for the light switch, caught it, watched the basement light up dimly at his feet. He steeled himself and went down.

The heater was at the back of the basement, behind Bobby's work bench, tucked into the corner beside the panic room; Dean barely spared the room a glance. The heater was dark and silent in the corner.

It was cold to the touch, but he managed to pry the rusted panel off of the front of it. The damn thing was probably older than he was, Dean swore. His teeth were chattering as he knelt and shined the flashlight inside the belly of the machine. The pilot was out.

Dean took a minute to make sure that it was cranked off, that it didn't smell like it was leaking anything other than dust into the air. Then he stuck his lighter in and caught the pilot. He closed it back up before it could blow up, driving the dirty screws back into their sockets and switching it back on. The heater hummed, shuddered; above his head, the phone rang in the kitchen.

He waited until the heater was thrumming regularly before going back upstairs. It was still just as cold, but the radiator in the hallway was crackling, so he supposed it had worked. He took a second to adjust the thermostat before stepping into the kitchen. "Who the hell was that on the phone?" He asked Bobby, who was standing like a guard dog in front of the percolator. "It's not even six o'clock."

"Rufus," Bobby said. His eyes moved skittishly from the bubbling carafe to Dean and back again. "Dean-"

"I think Sam's sick," Dean interrupted. He moved from one foot to another, stomping them against the floorboards in an attempt to circulate warmth back in them. "You got a thermometer around here?"

"Medicine cabinet in the bathroom," Bobby replied. He looked as if he were going to say something more but Dean was already up the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the bedroom, Sam was a muffled lump under the blankets. He left him and went into the bathroom, where he found the thermometer stuffed behind the toothpaste in the cabinet. He moved back into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and shook Sam.

"Sammy. Sam, come on. Wake up."

Sam did so slowly, mumbling and whining a little. He was breathing funny, his breath hissing raggedly through his nose and his chest hitching. He squinted at Dean. "Go 'way, Dean."

"Come on. Sit up." Dean waited until Sam had dragged himself halfway up the pillow before popping the thermometer in his brother's mouth. Sam spit it out; Dean picked it up off of the blanket and glared at Sam. "Two minutes, man, okay? I need two minutes from you and then you can go back to sleep."

Sam groaned but he was still as Dean placed the thermometer back under his tongue and held it there, his hand clamped around his little brother's chin, his eyes trained on his wristwatch. When he was sure enough time had passed, he plucked it out and felt his stomach crawl at the line of mercury.

"Get back under the covers, Sam" he said. Sam stared at him blankly. "Lie down," he ordered, his voice a little louder, and Sam sniffled, glared at him out of glassy eyes.

"Stop yellin' t'me," he snapped, but he scuttled back down until only the top of his head was visible, ragged brown curls spilled over the pillow. Dean sighed and rearranged the blankets, made sure he was warm and covered, then hurried downstairs.

In the kitchen, Bobby was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee with his eyes half shut. He started when Dean burst in. "How high's it?" he asked, and Dean barked:

"One oh two. Point three. That's high, right?" He was nervous just saying the numbers aloud. Even before, even when Sam had been big, he'd always gotten high fevers, and they had always made Dean nervous then. This time it was different, because Sam- Sam was different-

Bobby stood, scraping his chair back. He moved slowly to the counter, where he fished an orange bottle out of the cabinet and popped it open. "I've got some Tylenol here," he said to Dean. "It's adult strength, but you can give him just a little bit of it and it should do the trick." He laid a tablet on the counter, used a knife to slice through it, then a spoon to grind it into a fine dust. He scooped a spoonful of peanut butter into a bowl and swept the dust into it, stirred it around, handed it to Dean.

"Give him that and come back down," he said brusquely. "Get him something cold too. And hurry up. We've got to talk."

Dean took the bowl and went up the stairs two at a time. In the bedroom, Sam was struggling to disentangle himself from the blankets, dangling himself over the edge of the bed. He froze when Dean entered. "Dean-"

"In bed," Dean said shortly. He put the bowl down, hauled Sam back up. "You're sick, okay, man? You need to just do what the hell I say and stay in bed, all right? Eat this."

He passed Sam the bowl; Sam crinkled his nose at it, shook his head. "I don't like it-"

"I don't care," Dean snapped. He thrust the bowl at Sam. "Eat it. _Now_."

Sam was nearly as bad at taking orders now as he had been as an adult. He glared at Dean, his chin quivering. "I don't like peanut butter," he said angrily. "I only like Fluff, Dean."

What the hell was Fluff? Dean shook his head. "Sammy-"

"_No_, Dean."

He was at a loss. Dean took the bowl, went back downstairs where Bobby was re-filling his mug of coffee. He dropped the peanut butter, bowl and all, into the trash and sat heavily at the table. "He won't fucking eat it," he said through gritted teeth, and Bobby looked at him like he was the stupidest thing alive.

"So put it in something else," he said incredulously. "Jesus Christ, Dean-"

"I can't do this, okay?" Dean snapped. "How the hell I'm supposed to fix him, or-or take care of him if I can't even get him to eat half the time?"

Bobby continued to stare at him; Dean felt his shoulders bristle. "What?" He snarled, and Bobby rolled his eyes, turned back to the cabinet, sliced and crushed another pill.

"You know, Dean," he said loudly, "Not everything's gotta be a battle."

Dean snapped back: "If he's not going to listen to me, yeah, it will be. You know how he is-"

"And I know how _you _are," Bobby countered. He opened the refrigerator, took out the orange juice, poured a glass, swept the crushed medicine off of the counter and into the cup. "Dean, there isn't always going to be a winner, and it can't always be you. Sometimes you're going to need to compromise. Pick your battles or you're going to wear yourself out before you know it." He thrust the glass at Dean. "If something isn't working, son, you try something else. Haven't you learned anything?"

Dean wasn't sure what the hell Bobby was talking about, but he took the orange juice and went back upstairs, where Sam was sitting on the floor, tears running down his face, angrily trying to stuff his bare feet into his sneakers. He looked up as Dean entered and shouted, "I don't _want _ peanut butter, Dean!"

He felt like his head was going to explode. Without a word, he put the glass on the nightstand, wrestled Sam's sneakers off of him, and put him back into the bed. "You need to listen to me, Sammy," he said, as evenly as he could through the pounding in his skull. "You're sick. You need to take your medicine and stay in bed and rest."

"I can't rest," Sam sobbed. He pulled away from Dean, flopped over onto his pillow, and covered his face with his hands. "I can't sleep, Dean. I jus' want t'see my car."

Dean set his teeth, gently pulled Sam back upright. "You can see your car, okay?" He took the orange juice from the nightstand, folded it into Sam's too small hands, helped him support it. "I'll take you to see it as soon as you're better, okay?"

Sam hiccupped. "Tomorrow?"

"As soon as you're better. Drink your juice."

Sam drank it slowly, his hands shaking. He dribbled some of the juice down his chin, onto his shirt, onto the blanket. Dean didn't care. Sometimes, he thought wearily, there _was _no winner.

He took the empty glass from Sam and went into the bathroom, where he wet a washcloth with cold water and wrung it out before carrying it back into the bedroom. Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet dangling over the side, his eyes half shut. "Can you help me plant t'flowers, Dean?" he slurred. He was pliant and limp as Dean maneuvered him back over the bed, tucked him in underneath the blankets. "Can you, Dean?" he asked again, and Dean sighed, laid the cold cloth over Sam's forehead.

"Sure, Sammy," he said. "As soon as the snow's gone, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said sluggishly. "Hokie-dokie, Dean-o." His eyes slid shut. "Can you stay w'me, Dean?" He whispered. Dean sat beside him on the bed, clutched the empty glass between his palms. Sam rolled his head towards him, struggled to crack one eye open. "Don't leave me, okay, Dean?"

Dean coughed into his fist. "Okay, Sammy," he said. "Okay. Go to sleep now, alright, dude?"

Sam hiccupped, nodded. His eyes slid shut and Dean sat for a long time in the room, listening to his brother's ragged breathing and watching the snow pile in tall drifts against the window pane.

Xxxx

He waited until he was sure Sam was sleeping soundly- until he was sure that the medicine was doing something- before taking the empty glass back downstairs. Bobby was still in the kitchen, working on yet another cup of coffee, looking a little more lively than he had just an hour ago.

"How's the kid?" he asked gruffly. "He get the medicine down?"

"Yeah." Dean put the glass in the sink, poured himself a cup of coffee. His head was swimming, foggy, and thick; what he wouldn't give, he thought to himself, for one night of uninterrupted sleep. A good solid eight hours with no nightmares and no Sam-

"You want to eat?" Bobby asked, and Dean shook his head, sat at the table.

"Not yet." He took a sip of the coffee, hissing as it burned his tongue. He put the cup down, rubbed his hands over his eyes. "That medicine's okay to give him, right? We didn't just OD him or anything?"

"He'll be okay. You're daddy used to give it to you boys all the time." Bobby eyed him carefully across the table, running a hand over his rust colored beard. He sighed. "Dean, Rufus is on his way here."

Dean snapped his head up, his ears ringing. "What?" He snapped. "Why? What, am I supposed to just hide Sam-"

"He knows about Sam," Bobby cut in, and Dean felt himself go flat inside. Bobby hurried on, his fingers working anxiously around the handle of his mug, "He was here when you called me from Michigan, Dean. He knows the deal, okay?"

There was a steady, tinny buzzing in his ears. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone, Bobby." It was hard to speak, he was so angry. "I told you to keep it quiet. I told you- we can't have anyone poking around, anyone stirring anything up-"

What was he supposed to do? He thought desperately. Where was he supposed to go? He couldn't do this just anywhere, take care of Sam, keep him safe- He couldn't do this alone. He was just so _tired _of doing it all alone.

"I told him because we need the help, Dean," Bobby said softly. "Rufus is a good guy. He ain't going to go spilling this stuff to anyone. And we need him. We need someone we can trust, someone we can use to go out there and find answers-"

"We're finding answers." Dean's voice was loud, too loud, even to his own ears. "And I don't trust him. I barely know him. I met him once, Bobby. One time-"

"And he didn't screw you over then, did he?" Bobby snapped. His eyes were hard and angry underneath the brim of his hat. "I trust him, Dean. Your father- he trusted him. And don't tell me we're finding answers. We're sitting here playing Susie homemaker to a four year old kid and we're getting _nothing _done."

Dean was quiet. Bobby took a swallow of coffee, as if to fortify himself, and plowed on, "Face it, Dean. We're spinning our wheels, you and me. There's not too much we can do here except keep Sam safe and hidden, and that's only going to hold foot for so long. We ain't going to find the thing that changed Sam here- we're going to find it out _there_, and we need Rufus for that."

Dean dropped his face into his hands, breathed deeply, breathed evenly, between his fingers. His chest hurt and his head hurt and everything, _everything_, Bobby had just said was right, was true- they were spinning their wheels. There was nothing they could do for Sam from here. He was failing his brother, and the truth of that sat like a weight on his chest.

Someone was crying. It took Dean a minute to register the noise as Sam, but by the time he did, Bobby was already on his feet, pressing a warm hand to Dean's shoulder, moving past him towards the staircase. "Drink your coffee, boy," he told Dean gently before heading up the stairs, towards the soft strains of the crying child.

Dean drank his coffee.

Xxxx

Sam's fever waned several hours later, then spiked a few hours after that. It was a full day and a half before they were able to control it, to keep it down, and by that time Sam was so exhausted that he fell asleep on the couch and slept through lunchtime, all the way up to dinner. Dean, who'd spent the night alternating between dozing fitfully and trying to keep his brother cool and comfortable, gave up research and fell asleep on the armchair across from Sam in the living room. When he woke up, hours later, his neck ached and his stomach growled. Sam was draped across his lap, curled into a ball with his head digging into Dean's ribs. The television droned the six o'clock news in a dull whisper; in the kitchen, the light was on and voices rumbled through the doorway.

Dean rubbed the crick out of his neck, then stood, maneuvering Sam onto the armchair. He stirred but didn't wake; his mouth curled around his thumb. Dean pulled it out before covering him with his blue afghan and moving into the kitchen, where Bobby was cooking something on the stove and Rufus was drinking a long neck at the table.

He'd met Rufus once, just weeks before he died. Rufus had never met Sam – heard of him, yes, but met him, no. According to Bobby, Rufus and his father had worked a couple jobs together, which didn't surprise Dean. John Winchester had worked a few jobs with just about everybody, and had somehow managed to alienate most of them.

Bobby turned when Dean stepped into the doorway. He offered him a tight smile. "Kid sleeping?" He asked, and Dean started, coughed. At the table, Rufus sipped his beer and scrutinized him with an unreadable expression.

"Yeah," Dean replied. Bobby nodded, then asked:

"You feeling alright, boy?"

Dean figured that he must look as awful as he felt. If someone had told him three weeks ago that taking care of a sick four year old child was almost more physically taxing than hunting a ghost or tracking a werewolf, he would have laughed. Now, he empathized.

"I'm okay," he answered. Rufus cleared his throat.

"Boy," he said, "You sure look good for someone who dragged themselves through hell fire."

Sometimes, lately, he could almost forget about: the burning heat on his face, the blood swimming in his eyes, the screams of the thousands he'd bound to that rack. It was only in his darkest dreams that those memories were still able to get him in their clutches, still able to peel him open and apart- until someone reminded him. He shook the cold clawing feeling from his stomach, forced a lopsided grin in Rufus' direction, but any quick reply he might have had died in his throat. So he coughed instead, said, "Thanks, Rufus."

Rufus nodded slowly. Bobby sighed, motioned to the table. "Sit down," he told Dean. "You up for some chili?"

He wasn't that hungry, but Bobby's chili – the kind that didn't come out of a can, the kind he'd slow simmered on the stove for hours – had never been something he could turn down. He sat across from Rufus, who slid an unopened beer across the table top to him. He popped the top, took a swallow.

"We oughtta wake him soon," Bobby said casually. "See if he can eat something."

"I'm not too sure that chili's the thing to beat off the stomach flu with," Dean said, and Bobby grinned a little, plopped the bowl down in front of Dean.

"I wasn't talking chili, you moron. Eat up."

Dean ate as quickly as he could, burning his mouth and tongue on the hot black beans, the thick chili paste. It was the best thing he'd eaten in days, he thought. He was nearly done when Bobby left the kitchen for the living room. Dean heard him turn off the television, say something in a low voice. A few minutes later and he returned, Sam following close behind him. He was dragging his blanket on the floor behind him and mumbling. He didn't so much as balk at the sight of Rufus; he went right to the table and climbed into Dean's lap without a word.

Dean held Sam and watched Rufus. Rufus sipped his beer and studied Sam without speaking. They were all silent, their breaths bated, the air heavy with tension.

Sam reached up and pulled at one of Dean's buttons. "My head hurts," he said crankily, and Dean sighed, pushed Sam's hand down.

"You want some medicine?" he asked. Sam's face creased into a scowl.

"I hate medicine," he said angrily. He pulled at Dean's button again; Dean pushed his hand down, smoothed the sweat soaked curls off of his forehead. Sam's eyes were red and glassy with the remnants of his sickness.

"You want to eat?" He asked. Sam twisted his head around to peer into Dean's bowl. He stuck out his tongue.

"That looks like puke," he said, and Rufus chortled, choking a little on his beer. Dean rolled his eyes.

"That's not for you," he told Sam. "And it's not that bad."

"It _looks _that bad," Sam countered. He sat up straighter, his back to Dean's chest, and gripped the edge of the table with his fingers. He frowned at Rufus. "Who're you?"

"I'm Rufus," Rufus said softly. "I'm a friend of your brother's. And Bobby's."

Sam crinkled his nose. "That's a dog's name," he said loudly. Dean groaned and covered Sam's mouth with his hand. Sam fought against him.

"Don't be rude, Sammy," he said. Sam turned his head and glared at him out of the corner of his eye. Dean glared back. Rufus laughed again.

"What do you want to eat, Sam?" Bobby asked. "You want some soup?"

"Fluff," Sam said promptly. "Just Fluff."

"We don't got that," Bobby told him. "Soup or toast, Sam."

"_Fluff, _Bobby-"

"Just soup," Dean interjected. Sam turned to glare at him again, but he was over it. He ignored his little brother's condemnation and picked up his beer. "He can have soup."

"I don't want soup," Sam whispered. Dean sipped his beer, shrugged.

"Tough, dude."

Sam growled and turned to pick at the table. Rufus opened another beer. "How old are you, Sam?" He asked carefully, and Sam scowled.

"I'm four," he said petulantly. "Do you know my brother?"

"I do," Rufus said. There was a look in his eyes, one Dean wasn't sure how to interpret. He knew Rufus didn't mean either of them any harm but still; old habits were hard to break. He pulled Sam a little closer to him.

Bobby brought the bowl of soup to the table and Sam ate a little of it, mostly the noodles. He used his spoon to pick out most of the chicken chunks and had them arranged in little pile on the tabletop before Dean realized what he was doing. "Sammy, stop it-"

"I _hate _chicken, Dean-"

"Since when?" He didn't remember Sam ever hating chicken. Of course, as a kid, Sam had hated pretty much everything but cheese and Lucky Charms. "Stop it. You're making a mess."

"I want maraconi," Sam told him. He stuck his chin out. There was a noodle pasted to the front of his shirt. "I hate this stuff. I wan' maraconi."

"It's macaroni," Dean told him. "And you can't have any until your all better."

"I'm all better," Sam muttered. He banged his spoon against the table. "Can we see my car now?"

"It's dark out," Dean said, and Sam's mouth tightened, his face reddening.

"_You _said-"

"You know what?" Dean interrupted. "I think you need a bath." He stood and hauled Sam onto his hip, stepped away from the table. Sam kicked him. "I'll be back soon," Dean told Bobby and Rufus, who were watching the scene unfold with more than a little amusement. He ignored them and strode up the stairs, Sam wriggling in his arms.

He took Sam to the bathroom and plopped him down on the ground. Sam jolted to his feet and turned, as if to run, but Dean was faster. He grabbed Sam's arm, curtailed his flight. "Sammy," he said harshly, "Knock it off, allright?"

Sam pushed at his hand. "Lemme go, Dean!" he shouted. His face was red and trembling, tears lining his eyelids. "You – you lied t'me, you said we could see my car-"

"Sam." Dean didn't loosen his grip. He crouched down, put his face in line with Sam's. Sam blinked and pulled back. "Sam, its dark out. And it's snowing. We can't go outside right now."

"You promised!" Sam shouted. His breathing intensified, rapid fire, his chest hammering in and out, in and out. He yanked again on his arm. "You said when I was better-"

"Sam, you're not better," Dean snapped. "You're barely better-"

"I _am _better-"

"You're not better until I say so, okay?" Dean stood, smacked the bathroom door shut with the flat of his hand. The sound reverberated through the small room. "You're not better until _I _say your better, and that's that, okay? You're not running this show, you hear me?"

Sam said nothing, but the look on his face spoke volumes. Dean ignored it. He didn't care, he thought angrily- there were some battles he was going to lose, some battles they were both going to lose, but, _Jesus Christ,_ couldn't he win at least one of them?

"You're taking a bath," Dean snapped. "Get undressed." He knelt and plugged the drain, ran the water luke warm and watched it fill. Behind him, Sam shuffled, sniffling, occasionally letting out a small sob. When the tub was filled, he helped Sam into it, set about quietly and furiously going through the motions of washing Sam. Sam could have done it – had been doing it- but Dean wasn't took keen on the idea of leaving a still sickly Sammy alone in the tub, no matter how irritated he was with him.

Sam sat limply and cried the entire time, silently, big tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn't make a sound when Dean sloshed water over his head, when he pulled the drain and hauled Sam from the tub, manhandled him into a towel and carried him into the bedroom. He left Sam standing next to the bed and went to the closet to find pajamas. Sam's duffel lay on the floor at his feet; he resisted the sudden urge to kick it. He took Sam's pajamas off the shelf with trembling hands and turned back to his little brother.

He toweled Sam dry and helped him into his pajamas. Sam moved sluggishly, weakly, holding onto Dean's arm for support, silent. When he was dressed Dean hefted him onto the bed, ran the towel over Sam's sopping curls. Sam flinched away; Dean sighed.

"Sammy, I didn't lie to you, okay?" He wasn't sure why he felt the need to explain himself to his brother, but he did. "I said I'd take you when you were better and you're not. You're not better until twenty four hours after your fever goes away." He wasn't sure if this was correct or not, but that's how long John had used to keep them out of school when they were sick.

Sam sniffled. He stuck his fingers into his mouth. "I _am _better, Dean," he whispered sadly. Dean closed his eyes, counted to ten. It was a trick he'd picked up from Bobby over the past week.

"Sammy, if you're still feeling okay tomorrow and it's not snowing, we'll go then, okay?"

Sam looked away. "I jus' want t'see it now, Dean."

"Well, you can't." Dean reached past Sam, pulled the blankets back. "It's bed time, okay?"

"But I already slept t'day."

"You need to sleep tonight too."

"I don't want-"

"_Sam_."

He'd forgotten what the power of that one word could sometimes still wield. Sam started a little at Dean's tone. He looked for a minute as if he were still contemplating arguing, but then he stuck his fingers back in his mouth and, with a scowl, crawled over the blanket and dropped down onto his pillow, buried his face in it. Dean drew the blankets up over him, sat on the edge of the bed-

"I don't wan' you t'stay." Sam lifted his head, glared at Dean. He was crying again. "I jus' wan' t'be alone."

Dean knew it was just Sam being a brat, being overtired, being sick, but the words still hurt. He didn't think they should, after so long, but it was all gone in a second, eight long years of carefully erected walls and dams and suddenly he was standing back there again, on that rainy street in New York, watching eighteen year old Sam hoist a duffel to his shoulder and walk out of his life.

This Sam wasn't that Sam, he knew, but it _was _Sam. There was a little of his brother left in there; why was Dean expecting anything different? He swallowed back the hurt, stood, picked up the towel where it had fallen to the ground. "Suit yourself," he said to his brother's rigid back. Sam didn't answer and he added, softer, because he _had _to, "If you need anything- just holler, Sammy."

Sam said nothing.

xxxx

Dean put the towel back in the bathroom, picked up Sam's clothes off of the floor, took a piss. He splashed some water on his face and studied his refection in the mirror, the darkening of stubble on his cheeks and chin, the bruises sagging underneath his eyes, the creases pulling at the corner of his mouth. He dried his face and went back downstairs, pausing at the doorway to the bedroom. There was no sound from within.

He found Bobby and Rufus downstairs, nursing glasses of Jack at the kitchen table. Dean ignored their pointed looks, took a glass from the dish rack, poured himself a substantial glass and took it down in two or three short gulps. He waited for the alcohol to burn a path down his throat to his stomach, for his head to settle, before sitting at the table. Rufus regarded him coolly.

"How old's your brother?" He asked quietly.

Dean poured himself another drink, shook his head. "Twenty –five," he said. He sipped the whiskey, slower, sloshing it behind his teeth. "Twenty-six in May. Taller than me too, if you can believe it. A good four inches."

Rufus whistled. "Someone ate their spinach," he said, and Dean dug around in his back pocket, pulled out his wallet. He had two pictures in there: one of him and his mother, the other of him and Sam. He pulled that one out and slid it across the table to Rufus, watched Rufus pick it up delicately, study it. Dean knew the print like the back of his hand: he and Sam leaning against the Impala, Bobby's house in the background. Dean could barely see eye-to-nose with Sam then; when he got him back, he swore, he would never, _never, _tease his brother about his height again.

Rufus passed the picture back, shared a pointed look with Bobby. "Looks a lot like him," He said to Bobby. "Smaller now, I mean- but still the same. I can see it."

"Yeah." Dean tucked the picture back into his wallet, laid it on the table next to his whiskey. "So- what's going on out there?"

Rufus shrugged, leaned back in his chair. "You mean besides the Apocalypse?" He chuckled. "Not much. Some seals here and there, I suppose. You not following anything?"

"We watch the news," Dean said flatly. "You know, when Spongebob's not on."

Rufus laughed again, and Dean felt his shoulders loosen. It had been a long time, he thought, since he'd heard anyone laugh like that.

Rufus quieted after a long minute. He wiped at his eyes, rolled his bottle between his hands. The look he offered Dean was narrow eyed, serious. "I hear some things, you know," he said. "All sorts of people talking, all sorts of things happening. More demon possession and these damned Messangers of God getting their panties all in a wad with each other. There's people asking for you, Dean Winchester."

Dean's skin crawled. "Let them ask," he said roughly. He drained his glass. "Let them. I'm not doing anything, not till this shit with Sammy is sorted out."

"These… angels, they think you owe them something."

Dean was quiet. Bobby cast him an uncertain look, turned to Rufus. "Its one'a them that pulled Dean from Hell," he said. Rufus's jaw worked. "Some little guy they call Castiel."

Rufus coughed. "Blue eyed son of a bitch in a trench coat? About yea high?" He held his hand up above his head, flat. Dean nodded. Rufus frowned. "He's been around. They're looking for the Winchester boys, they are."

"That doesn't make sense," Dean said. "Looking? He knows where Bobby lives. He knows this is where we stay."

"You're warded pretty heavily here," Rufus said, then added, chortling, "I almost didn't make it through the gate."

Dean smiled faintly. Bobby looked from him to Rufus, sighed. "Rufus, we're gonna need your help here."

"That's why I came." Rufus took a long draw of his beer, looked at Dean. "We need _your _help out there. The sooner we get you and your brother back in the game, the better it goes for all of us." He gave Dean, then Bobby, a long simmering look. "It's getting ugly out there, boys. I ain't about to sit by and watch those dickheads tear my world to pieces."

It was good to hear, Dean thought, that in all of the drudgery of the last three weeks, there were still people out there who depended on him, who thought he could serve some purpose. He wasn't a fan of all of this fate shit, of all of these angels yanking his chains and these demons yanking Sam's, but it was soothing to think that he was someone outside of the role he'd been forced to play for nearly a month now.

"Let me show you what we've got," Bobby said, standing. He winced a little. "It ain't much, but it's something."

"What're you thinking?" Rufus asked, and Dean tipped the bottle of Jack, watched the amber liquid slosh gently into his glass.

"What do you know," he said, "About tricksters?"


	4. Chapter 4: A Cinderella Story

**Disclaimer: I wish.**

_As always, thank you to all of you who have been lovely enough to review, favorite, follow, and READ! I hope your all enjoying the story!_

_On a totally unrelated side note (because I feel like bragging ha ha): two weekends ago Comic Con was held in my state, and I was lucky enough to get to meet Mark Sheppard, Jim Beaver, and Alaina Huffman, was well as sit in on a panel with them and Rick Worthy and Steven Williams. It was a little disconcerting to meet them - I was more than a little nervous- but I'm happy to say that they are literally the nicest people I've ever met. Jim Beaver is literally EXACTLY like Bobby, right down to his gruff tone and gentle mannerisms, and Alaina is, of course, beautiful and thank fully not a bitch like she is on the show. Mark was sweet and funny and just as snarky and witty as he is on television. During the panel, he was loud and fun and quite literally the life of the party. I think I'm hardcore crushing on him now ha ha. If you guys have never had the chance to get out to a convention and meet, I suggest you do! They were some of the most appreciative people I've ever met and you could tell that they were having just as good of a time interacting with their fans as we were with them! Ok, long author's note done! Enjoy the chapter!_

**Chapter Four: A Cinderella Story**

They worked late into the night, the three of them huddled around the table, the wind screaming against the house and the snow battering the windowpanes. They took no notice of it. Dean manned the computer, Rufus took over the books of lore, and Bobby kept the beer flowing, and in what seemed like no time at all, they had a plan, some sort of rubric they could go off of, a way to develop a pattern.

"We're nowhere near close to finding this thing, boy," Bobby warned Dean. It was three a.m. and they were all drooping, all folding under the demands of a long day. "But we got something we can use. Between the three of us, we should be able to catch this damn thing, even with you and Sam locked up here. Don't get your hopes up yet."

"I'm not," Dean assured him, but it was hard to keep that edge out of his voice. Bobby cocked an eyebrow at him; he ignored it, tipped back his head, drained the rest of his beer. "I might head up, guys," he confessed. The room was slurring gently about him; whether it was from the alcohol or exhaustion, he wasn't sure.

Bobby studied him a moment, then nodded. "Good idea. It's late. We can pick this back up in the morning." He stood, started collecting beer cans and bottles, shot glasses sticky with the cloying smell of liquor. "You okay on my couch, Rufus?" He asked, and Rufus chuckled.

"Just like old times, aye, Bobby?" He asked, and Bobby's face turned somberly downwards.

"Not quite," he murmured. Dean helped him throw away the garbage, stacked their books on a shelf where Sam couldn't reach them, and stumbled up the stairs to the bedroom, where he closed the door gently behind him and adjusted the thermostat before kicking off his boots and jeans and crawling into bed. Sam was fast asleep, stretched out across the pillows with his hair strewn into his eyes and one corner of his blanket hooked between his teeth. Dean pulled it out, stuffed Sam's arms back under the blanket, and turned off the light.

Sam woke him up just a few hours later. The sun was just cracking over the edge of the frost tipped window pane and Sam was jumping back and forth, back and forth over his legs, his afghan tied over his head like a hood.

"Are you up, Dean?" He asked when Dean stirred and groaned. Dean blinked at him, scowled.

"Stop it. It's not even seven in the morning, Sam."

"Can we go see my car?" Sam asked hurridley. He stopped jumping but still stood on the end of the bed, holding tight to the foot board with two hands. He scowled at Dean. "You said we could when I was better."

"Don't start that again, okay?" Dean warned. He sat up, rubbed at his face with his hands. He was so _tired_. "Come here. Let me take your temperature."

Sam leaped across the bed, landed on his knees beside Dean, bounced. He scrambled into a sitting position. "Then we can see my car?" He asked again, and Dean ignored the question. The thermometer was next to the clock on the nightstand, where it had been for two days. He picked it up, shook it, popped it into Sam's mouth.

"Don't talk," he told his brother. Sam nodded his head, his hair flopping into his eyes. He sniffled, stuck his fingers through the slats in the headboard. When Dean pulled the thermometer out, he was immediately back into motion, slithering backwards off of the bed, skipping across the room.

"Now let's go outside," he said happily, and Dean stood, hauled him away from the door and back onto the bed.

"After," he said. He was already dreading the promise – it was cold outside- but he knew that keeping Sam cooped up in the house was just asking for another scene like last night, so he went on: "Let me shower, okay? And you need to get dressed. And we need to eat breakfast."

Sam flopped over backwards onto the bed, rolled himself into the quilt so only his head stuck out. "Can I have Lucky Charms?" he implored, and Dean sighed, pulled a pair of clean jeans from the basket of laundry that he somehow never seemed to get around to finishing.

"Yes," he said, and Sam crowed. He added: "Stay here, okay? Don't leave the room, all right? Wait for me to come get you."

"Okie dokie, Dean." Sam was wriggling in his self-imprisoned cocoon. Dean left the room, closing the door behind him. In the bathroom he showered and shaved, running the water as hot as he could and staying in as long as he dared with Sam loose in the other room. He hung his towel on the rack next to the shower and went back into the bedroom, where Sam was jumping on the bed, the mattress creaking. The pillows and blankets were on the floor; as soon as Dean opened the door, he dropped over the edge of the bed, started picking them up off the floor.

"It was a accident, Dean," he said happily. Dean sighed and helped him. "I didn't mean to," Sam went on. "They just fell. When it's summer out can we get a trampoline?"

"No," Dean said grimly. Come summer, Sam would be back to his normal, oversized annoying self, and this whole thing would be a nightmare faded into the patchwork of the back of Dean's mind. "Get dressed, Sam."

Sam took his time getting dressed, studying each of his four t-shirts before settling on one, insisting on buttoning his pants himself and putting on his own socks. "I'm not a baby, Dean," he said crossly when Dean tried to hurry things along. "I could do it myself." Even so, Dean ended up tying his sneakers, zippering his sweatshirt, and fixing his hood for him.

"Ready?" Dean asked, and Sam nodded, grinned, skipped ahead of him down the stairs and into the kitchen.

The kitchen was empty, left exactly as they had left it the night before: coffee mugs and shot glasses in the sink, computer on the counter, papers and books strewn about the table. The doors to the living room were slid shut, presumably for Rufus' privacy. Sam made a beeline for them and stuck his fingers between the cracks, grunting as he tried to pull it open.

"Why's Bobby got these closed?" He asked, and Dean swept him backwards, dropped him into a chair.

"Leave it be," he ordered. He went to the cabinet, found a clean bowl, Sam's box of Lucky Charms. There was less than a half-gallon of milk left in the fridge. "You want orange juice, Sam?"

"Can I have coffee?" Sam asked, and Dean shook his head, snorted.

"Yeah, right." He crossed to the table, thumped the bowl down in front of Sam, poured the cereal and milk into it. "Here. Eat up."

Sam picked up his spoon, plunged it into his bowl. "Where's Bobby?" He asked. Dean turned back to the counter, moved through the motions of filling the coffee maker, measuring out the grinds, turning it on-

Behind him, the door to the living room slid open and he turned in time to see Rufus enter. "You boys are up early," he said wryly, and Sam scowled at him.

"Why're _you _still here?" He demanded. Dean glared at him.

"Knock it off. He's helping me and Bobby."

"I can help." Sam's spoon clattered against the table. He looked at Rufus out of the corner of his eye, his lips puckered downwards in a frown. "I can help. He can go home."

"Eat your breakfast," Dean said with exasperation. Sam rolled his eyes, stuffed the spoon into his mouth. Milk dribbled down his chin.

Rufus took a mug from the cabinet, passed it to Dean. Dean took it with a nod. The coffee was almost done, the heady aroma filling the kitchen, warm against Dean's face. Behind him, at the table, Sam laid his spoon next to his bowl and began to pick at his cereal with his fingers. Dean bit back a shout. "Sam. Get your fingers out of your food."

"I gotta find t'stars, Dean." Sam dipped his fingers back into his bowl, his face screwed up in concentration. "I got t'save them for last."

"I don't care," Dean said harshly. "That's gross. You don't use your fingers to eat, you use your spoon. You know that."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "I'm not gross," he said petulantly. "You're gross."

Rufus coughed into his hand, covering his mouth to hide his smile. Dean ignored him. He snatched the carafe from the coffee machine and briefly considered drinking straight from it. He poured himself a cup and chugged it, black and bitter, grimacing a little at the taste. When he turned around again, Sam had his spoon in his hand but there was a row of soggy little marshmallow stars around his bowl. Dean sighed. "Sammy-"

"Why're you always so grumpy?" Sam asked sadly. He stirred his milk slowly with his spoon. "Why d'you always yell t'me?"

Why did he? Dean wasn't sure how he was supposed to answer that, how he was supposed to address the hurt in Sam's eyes. He was acutely aware of Rufus' presence, of how closely he was watching the two of them. He felt more than a little uncomfortable with the entire situation.

"Sammy," he said finally, "Just eat your breakfast, okay? And I'll take you to see your car."

The last thing he wanted to do was step out into that frozen wasteland that was Bobby's backyard, but he had a feeling that keeping Sam cooped up all day was a recipe for disaster. Sam was hard to handle when he was on his best behavior; dealing with Sam on his worst loomed in the back of Dean's mind like a nightmare straight from the pit of Hell itself.

xxxx

They went outside, where Sam insisted on clearing off the hood of his car with a broom. He wiped some snow off it while Dean watched, then ate some snow, then sat in it and cried because he was wet and cold. Dean ended up carrying him back inside and forcing him into a warm shower to drive away the cold. By the time he had hung Sam's wet clothes out, got Sam re-dressed, and finally got them both back downstairs, Bobby was up and sitting at the table with Rufus, notes and papers and books strewn about in front of them.

"Can you spare a few minutes?" Bobby asked, and Dean carted Sam into the living room, plopped him down on the couch, flicked on the television. He browsed until he found the girl with the pointy triangle hair and turned to Sam.

"Can you deal with this?" he asked, and Sam bounced on the couch cushion, sniffled at Dean.

"I'm not a baby, Dean," he said. Dean sighed.

"Don't change the channel."

"What if Dora gets over?"

Dean put the remote on top of the television, turned to leave the room. "Then come get me."

He left Sam bouncing softly on the couch, his eyes glued to the television, and came back into the kitchen. He took a seat next to Bobby, rubbed his hands wearily over his jaw. There was a pressure building behind his eyes, threatening to choke off his vision. He was vaguely aware of Bobby's probing gaze. "Is there anymore coffee?" he asked gruffly, and Bobby got up without a word, poured him a cup.

"Rufus thinks he can track the trickster," Bobby told him. Dean sipped the coffee, relished the bit of it on his tongue.

"With a spell?" he asked, and Rufus shook his head, tapped the laptop – _Sam's_ laptop, Dean thought with a lurch- sitting on the edge of the table.

"It won't be easy, because the trail's about a year and a half old, but this trickster, he's got an MO, right? Feeding people their just desserts. All you gotta do is start with Broward County and feel your way out – look for the weird, you know? It'll take awhile, but we find me a lead and I can run it from there."

Dean put his coffee aside, slid the laptop across the table, thumbed it open. "Check police reports," he told Bobby. "We can move county by county till we find something." _We've got to find something_, he thought. In the living room, Sam bounced on the couch.

xxxx

It took them two and a half more days, but finally, they found something.

" 'High School Administrator Alleged of Misconduct Towards Students Finds Himself the Victim of Sexual Assault,'" Bobby read. He cocked an eyebrow at Dean, wearily watching the coffee machine hiss and stream out its fifth pot that day. "That sound like our guy?"

Dean shrugged. "Where's it from?" he asked. Above his head, Sam's feet pounded the floorboards. It was two in the afternoon and he was supposed to be napping. "Any suspects? What's the date on the article, Bobby?"

"March 18," Bobby answered. "The article's from the front page of the Sunset Gazette. Local paper published out of Ochlockonee, Florida."

"What the hell kind of name is that?" Dean asked. The coffee was done brewing; he tipped the carafe over, sloshed some of it into his cup. A door opened and closed upstairs. "Why the hell can't he just stay in bed?"

"Ochlockonee's a small town nearby Lake Jackson," Bobby went on. " 'Bout ten hours drive from Broward County. That's where the Mystery Spot was, right?"

"Yeah," Dean said distantly. His mind churned vehemently. The pounding on the floor upstairs was starting to drill a hole through his head. "What's it say about suspects?"

"There were no fingerprints or traces of DNA left at the scene of the crime." Bobby clicked on something on the computer, his eyes scrolling up and down the screen. "There had been several reports of harassment filed the previous week by students. Vice Principal Gregorf was suspended while the charges were being investigated. His son found him in their yard the morning of the 19th, tied ass naked to a series of stakes in the yard. There were signs of physical aggression around his-"

"I get it," Dean cut in, frowning. Upstairs, something thumped; he ground his teeth together and set his cup heavily on the counter. "See if you can dig up anything else on that guy," he told Bobby, and took the stairs two at a time.

In the bedroom, Sam had piled the pillows in a heap on the floor and was in the process of leaping off of the bed into them. Dean caught him mid-air and, ignoring the startled, wide eyed look on Sam's face, dropped him back onto the bed. "You're supposed to be napping, Sam," He ground out. Sam scuttled backwards, kicking the mattress with the heels of his feet. His socks weren't matching.

"I'm not tired," he told Dean. "I want to play trampoline."

"Tough." Dean picked up the pillows off of the floor, shook them off, and tossed them back at the head of the bed. "It's naptime. I need like one hour a day where you're not driving me crazy, man."

A look passed across Sam's face; Dean regretted the words as soon as he said them. "I don't make you crazy, Dean," he said sadly. Dean closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, counted down from ten to one. His head was ringing.

"Sam." He opened his eyes, sought out his brother's gaze. "Look, man, you've got to give me a break once in awhile, okay? I need some time alone sometimes, okay?"

Sam shrunk away from his gaze, buried his face in his blue blanket. "I give you time," he said tearily. "I give you the shower time, Dean."

Dean thought blandly that if he wasn't so goddamned tired , he would have laughed. He settled for chuckling weakly, for leaning down to place the pillows in an even line across the top of the bed, to pull Sam back underneath the blankets he had tucked him under an hour ago.

"One hour, Sam," he said, and Sam squirmed away from him, buried his head under his pillow. "Sleep. Okay?"

Sam mumbled something into the mattress that Dean couldn't make out, so he decided to just let it go. He left the room, closing the door firmly behind him, and ventured back downstairs, where Rufus was just stepping in the front door, carrying with him swirling eddies of snow and a paper bag, spotted with wet. In the kitchen, Bobby was fixing himself a cup of coffee.

"I don't know that this is our guy, Dean," he said abruptly, and Dean dropped into the chair, dragged the laptop closer. Bobby continued: "He's a fun guy, this Trickster, right? He likes to have fun with his victims. Remember, at the college, the slow dancing alien, the crocodile in the sewer-"

"What the hell are you talking about, slow dancing aliens?" Rufus interrupted incredibly from the door way. "Crocodile in the sewers?"

Bobby ignored him. "This seems- I don't know, too heavy handed for him. He likes to have his fun with people. Somehow I don't see him taking too much pleasure in staking sexual predators to their lawns and beating the shit out of them."

Dean clicked on another article, then another, skimmed the lines of blurry words. "No one was ever caught, Bobby," he said. "Gregorf could never ID anyone. Said his attacker wore a mask, kept to the shadows, and moved with a superhuman speed. That's got to be our guy."

"I don't know," Bobby said with a grimace. "I don't know, Dean. Something's not sitting right, here."

"Super human speed-"

"You know as well as I do that people see all sorts of things when they're frightened." Bobby put his cup of coffee down heavily on the counter. "Dean, the man was being investigated for molesting underage girls. There was bound to be a lot of people pissed at him, maybe even pissed enough to do something like this."

Dean almost let it slip past his lips, his plea of desperation. _Please, just let this be a lead, Bobby. Let this be something. _ But he didn't. He sat with his eyes glued on the screen and felt the world simmer, slow around him.

"What do you want to do?" He said at last, and Rufus stuck his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans.

"What happened to ol' Gregorf, anyways?" He asked, and Dean maneuvered the mouse over another article.

"Convicted all of the charges. Got four years in the state pen down in Jacksonville."

Rufus sighed, angled his head towards Bobby. "It ain't much," he said, "But it's something. I can make Florida in four days, Jacksonville in five. Ain't gonna take much time at all."

Bobby's lips flattened. He looked at Dean. "What do you want to do, son?" He asked, and Dean pressed the palms of his hands against his thighs, rubbed the sweat from his fingers with the denim of his jeans.

"I want to save Sam," he said roughly, and Bobby nodded, his eyes hard. He turned to the fridge.

"I'll make you some sandwiches for the ride," he said to Rufus, but it was quiet. Dean didn't care.

xxxx

Sam was more than happy to wake up from his nap to find Rufus gone.

"Now I can have my couch back," He said happily. He sat in the armchair and watched as Bobby gathered the blankets and pillows that Rufus had been using from one end of the couch. Bobby grunted at him.

"It ain't your couch," he said roughly. Sam blinked at him.

"It's part mine," he said. He stuck a finger in his mouth. "Me'n Dean part live here."

Dean sighed and called from the kitchen. "Sam, leave Bobby alone." He heard Sam huff in exasperation, thump as he slid out of the chair. A minute later and Sam was at his elbow, tugging on his jeans. "What, Sam?"

"When can we go to our own home?" Sam asked innocently, and Dean froze. In the doorway to the living room, Bobby watched him over an armful of striped linen. Dean cleared his throat.

"Sam, we stay here, okay?"

"But where's our home, Dean?" Sam insisted. "Where's our own home?"

_Good question_, Dean thought angrily. He shook his leg loose of Sam's hold, stepped wide around his brother, grabbed the blankets from Bobby's arms before the older hunter could protest. "I'll start a load," he said shortly, and turned down the basement steps.

He took his time with the laundry, shaking out the sheets, fluffing the pillows, carefully pouring out the detergent until the granules lined up with the markings on the cup perfectly. Even after he was done, he took his time, re-arranging some of the tools on Bobby's work bench, double checking the locks on the bulkhead door, even peeking inside of the panic room. He needed a break, he thought, some kind of lull between Sam's ever constant demands and Sam's continuous flow of questions. He needed a break, or a vacation, or at the very least, some more whiskey…

Finally, he went back upstairs. Sam was nowhere to be seen; Bobby was scraping at a grease stain on the top of the stove with a spatula. He didn't look up as Dean re-entered the kitchen. "Where's Sam?" He asked, and Bobby grunted.

"Upstairs. Said he had to get something from your room." A bang shook the floor above their head. Bobby pulled a face, turned his back to Dean. His shoulders were oddly stiff, his movements measured. Dean knew Bobby like the back of his hand; he knew that stance now. He sighed.

"Bobby-"

"I don't think it's our guy, Dean," Bobby said abruptly. He scraped at the stove top, harder, angrier. "I know you want to think so, son, but we're just grasping at straws with this one. We don't have the time to be sending Rufus off on wild goose chases."

Dean clenched his teeth together. "Bobby, it's the first fucking lead we've had, okay? It needs to be checked out. We need to find something –"

"You don't always get what you need, boy," Bobby interrupted roughly. "You know that more than anyone."

He did. Dean swallowed against the lump in his throat, raked his hand through his hair. He was shaking, though he didn't know why, and suddenly weak. He wanted to sit down; he struggled to find words that could appease Bobby and satiate himself. "Bobby- it's all we've found."

"It's your call," Bobby said flatly. "It's your brother. You're the one manning this hunt. But we could have used Rufus here, doing some more research-"

"All we've done is research!" Dean spat out. "All we've done is sit on our asses and read those fucking books and look at those fucking websites and it's gotten us _shit, _Bobby, shit. In four days it'll be a fucking month and he's still- he's still-"

_He's still gone_.

He couldn't say the words. They stayed in his throat, hard and crumbling, jagged, sharp. In four days it would be one month since he woke up that dim morning in a motel room five states over with four year old Sam standing at his bedside, asking for a glass of milk, and they had squat.

Bobby was looking at him with that look Dean sometimes hated and sometimes craved, that somber, sort of pitying glow in his eyes. Dean hated it today. He looked away, out the window, where the snow was scampering across the tops of cars, misty and dancing in the wind.

"We need him out there," Dean said finally. "We need to move on this. Before it's too late."

"What do you mean, before it's too late?" Bobby asked, and Dean didn't answer. Upstairs, the bed was bouncing against the floor.

They were quiet for a minute, together. Then Bobby said, softly, "We can spare a few days for Rufus. If it checks out, that'll be one step. If it doesn't, we'll start over. We'll keep at it here." He cracked a smile, but it was weak and lacking. "You want dinner?"

Bobby thought everything could be cured with a bowl of chili and a handle of whiskey. Dean didn't feel much like eating, but he nodded anyways. Bobby watched him a moment longer, then reached over, clapped Dean's shoulder.

"I'm thinking waffles," he said, and Dean blinked. "You go find that kid something else to do besides jump all over my furniture. He breaks any of my beds and I'll break him. You tell him that."

Dean left the kitchen and went upstairs, where Sam was jumping on the bed with his hands clasped tight to the footboard and the pillows scattered across the floor. He grinned at Dean. "I'm just playin' trampoline, Dean," he said. Dean massaged the sides of his temples with his fingertips.

"Sam, man, you're making a mess."

Sam sank to a wobbly stop. He was sweating and red faced, his hair dribbling into his eyes and his chest moving raggedly. He used his hands to wipe the offending strands of hair back. "I could pick it up," he offered sincerely. He slithered off of the bed and bent to grab a pillow. Dean kneeled down to help him.

When they were done, Sam climbed back on the bed and Dean said, "Sammy- no more jumping on the beds, okay? Or the couch. You're going to break something."

Sam turned wide eyes on him. "Like my neck?" He whispered in a small voice, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Like the bed, Sam. You're going to break the bed."

Sam frowned. "I'll jump small," he promised, and Dean settled Sam with what he hoped was a commanding expression.

"No more jumping," he said. "Bobby's orders. Capiche?"

"What's that?" Sam asked. He hooked a finger in his mouth, cocked his head. "Dean, when can we go to our own home?"

"This is our home," he said with conviction. He stood, held out a hand to Sam, who was frowning. "Come on. You want to help Bobby with dinner?" He asked, and Sam grudgingly slid his hand into his, shimmied forward, over the edge of the bed.

"Can we have Fluff?" He asked, and Dean bit back a groan. He didn't even know what Fluff _was._

"We're having waffles," he told Sam, and Sam wheedled:

"Waffles with Fluff?"

Dean sighed.

xxxx

Bobby's waffle iron, Dean thought, probably hadn't been used since they were kids. It smoked a little when Bobby plugged it in, and smelled slightly like electrical burning when it heated up, but it made damn good chocolate chip waffles.

The chocolate chips were Sam's idea. Dean wasn't even sure why Bobby had them in his house, but when he left Sam in the kitchen with Bobby to use the bathroom and came back, Sam was sitting on the counter next to the iron, his socked heels drumming a beat into the cabinet door below him, his mouth smeared with dark, gooey chocolate, his cupped hands full of it. In the mixing bowl, Dean saw, was about two cups of chocolate chips. He groaned a little and Sam held out his over-brimming hands.

"Wan' some choc'lit, Dean?" He asked mushily, and Dean shook his head, eyed Bobby wryly.

"Chocolate chip waffles, man?" he asked, and Bobby shrugged nonchalantly.

"It's all you ever wanted for breakfast," he said, and Dean remembered suddenly: sitting on that same counter with Sam at his side, a pile of melting chocolate sticky in his hands, sweating in his mouth, the iron steaming beside him, the sun glowing that early morning golden through the window pane. The memory startled him, then soothed him. He reached around Bobby and snagged a pinch of chocolate from the rapidly shrinking pile in Sam's hands.

After dinner, Sam helped Bobby with the dishes while Dean sat on the couch and idley flipped through the television stations, scanning the national headlines for news. A few stories caught his eye – earthquake in Tulsa, a flood in Rio de Janiero, a school shooting in Western Massachusetts- and he had just settled on CNN for the night when Sam popped up at his elbow.

"You want'a watch Dora, Dean?" He still had chocolate speckled on his face. Dean reached over and rubbed at the flecks with his thumb before he realized what he was doing. Sam stood, long sufferingly, and let Dean wipe away the mess. "You want'a watch Dora, Dean? You could learn some Spanish."

"I already know some Spanish," Dean told him. Sam frowned.

"You want'a watch some anyways, Dean?"

"Dora's not on right now," Dean said. He hesitated, then reached for the remote, clicked the television off. "Besides- you watch the TV all day, Sam."

Sam shrugged one shoulder, twisted his fingers into the front of his bangs. "I'm just tryin' t'learn some Spanish, Dean," he said softly, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"You're eyes are going to rot out," he said, then watched Sam probe at his own eyelids, an alarmed expression spreading over his face. He chuckled and reached out, pulled Sammy's hands down. "I'm kidding, man. It's a joke."

Sam scowled. "It's not funny, Dean." He sighed and edged closer to Dean, put one small hand on his knee. "I just want'a watch TV, Dean."

There was a stack of paper waiting in the printer in Bobby's study, a half dozen newspaper articles surrounding the incarcerated school administrator in Jacksonville. Dean sighed. "Sammy- how about you read a book or something? You like to read."

Sam fixed Dean with a patiently unbelieving look. "I can't read yet, Dean. You didn't teach me."

_Wrong Sam_, Dean thought irritably to himself. He pushed up off the couch, nudged Sammy away with his knee. "Well, you can look at the pictures then. Come on." He stepped around his brother, towards the study, vaguely aware that Sam was following him sulkily. In the study, he stopped to pull the articles from the printer before moving to one of the shelves that lined the wall. Bobby had to have something suitable in here for kids-

"But Dean, the pictures don't talk to me," Sam said from behind him. Dean rolled his eyes, ran his fingers along the spines of the leather bound volumes. Titles leapt out at him: _Symbolism in Norse Mythology, Biblical Plagues Today, Dream Scapes: Coming of Age in Southwestern Native American Culture, The Complete Collection of Grimm's Fairytales-_

He snagged the last one, pulling it off the shelf and coughing on the dust that followed in its wake. The book was old and heavy, bound in maroon leather with gilded script on the front. He remembered seeing it once, was vaguely aware of how old it was. He didn't think Bobby would care- and fairytales were for kids, right?

He offered the book to Sam, who took with open disdain on his face. He sniffed. "Dean, it smells."

"You'll get used to it. Come on." Dean took the articles off of the desk where he'd laid them and shepherded Sam out of the study, into the living room and towards the couch. He settled back onto it, then took the book and waited patiently while Sam scrambled up next to him.

"After this I can watch some TV, Dean," Sam said authoritatively, and Dean cocked an eye brow at him.

"After this, its bed," he said, and Sam scowled at the book he balanced on his legs.

"That's a stupid rule," he muttered, but Dean didn't say anything. He waited till Sam had flipped open the book and was hungrily scouring the pages for pictures before turning to the articles at hand. He started on the first paragraph-

"Dean, what's this girl doin'?"

Dean blinked over at Sam, who was pressing a wet finger to a detailed, colorful rendition of a girl kneeling in a fireplace. Dean glanced at the title on the preceding page. "She's cleaning the fire place. That's- um, that's Cinderella."

Sam quirked an eyebrow. "That's a stupid name," he said. Dean snorted.

"You're telling me." He turned back to his article-

"How come we don't clean Bobby's fireplace like this?" Sam frowned thoughtfully at the picture. "It looks fun."

Dean had cleaned Bobby's fireplace a time or two, usually after a summoning or a ritual or a spell. "Believe me, it's not."

Sam sighed and turned the page. He pointed to the next picture- two girls dressed in stupidly garish dresses and a severe older woman towered over the young girl. Cinderella, Dean reminded himself. Sam squinted at him. "They don't clean the fireplace?"

"No. They make Cinderella do it."

"How come?"

"They just- they just do, Sam." He turned back to his article, but was startled by the press of Sam's hand on his leg. He looked down, found those dangerous drooping puppy dog eyes bleeding into him. He sighed. "What, Sam?"

"Can you read it to me, Dean?" Sam asked softly. "Like you used to?"

Dean jolted, sat upright. "You remember?" He asked Sam loudly, and Sam shrank back a little, a scowl fixed on his face.

"You always read t'me, Dean," he said thickly. "Cause I'm too little."

Dean grasped the end of the sinking line that was Sam's opening, clung to it for dear life. "Sam," he said cautiously, his voice low, "Sammy – don't you think it's weird that I'm, that I'm bigger?"

There was a pregnant pause. Dean held his breath; Sam looked at him like he was crazy. "You always were bigger than me, Dean," he said. He kicked his heels against the couch cushion. "I'm the little brother, remember?"

Dean's heart sank. "Yeah, Sammy," he said tonelessly. "I remember." How could he forget?

The book thumped his leg. "Just one story, Dean? Please?"

There was research to be done. He should call Rufus, check in. There was a hundred things that he should be doing-

He sighed and picked up the book. "One story, Sam," he said, and Sam grinned wildly, wiggled over and buried his head under Dean's arm.

"Okay, go," he ordered, and Dean flipped back to the first page, wrinkling his nose a little at the dust, and read:

"Once upon a time…"

For a few minutes, he felt vaguely stupid. It had been years since he had read to Sammy, since he had needed to. He'd taught Sam to read when he was five and the kid had just taken off with it, had run away into this world of make believe and heroes and characters beyond the scope of reality. It had been the one thing he had to offer his brother then, the only stability in their ever changing world, the center in their chaotic childhood. The stories never changed from state to state- they didn't move when they did, didn't morph into something that could be snatched away at a moment's notice. Dean had had so little to offer Sammy then; he gave him what he could and watched his brother blossom under it.

It took him a long moment to realize that he had stopped reading, to realize that he was sitting there on the couch with a book of fairy tales in his hands and his baby brother pressed into his lap and something wet and warm on his face. He shuddered under the memory-

"Dean?" Sam's voice was small, was soft. "Dean, you don't have to read to me anymore if you want."

It was so like Sam, Dean thought, to offer, to look out for everyone before himself. How had he forgotten that? He took a steadying breath, raked a hand through Sam's mop-top curls, pressed him against his chest. Sammy was alive, Sammy was safe- they were alive and together and that, _that's _what mattered, wasn't it?

"I'm okay, Sammy," he said gruffly, and continued to read. He read until Cinderella was done, until the hands on the clock crept past seven, then eight and nearly nine, through Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel and Snow White. He read until his throat burned and Sam was a silent slip against his chest, sleeping with his fingers wormed through the hem of Dean's shirt and his mouth curving in a small smile. Then Dean closed the book and laid it next to him and held his brother and just _sat_.

It was after nine when Bobby came down from upstairs and regarded Dean with an expression he couldn't quite decipher. "Rufus called," he said. "Got held up with the snow leaving the state, but he's in Nebraska now. Says he should be able to make Iowa by morning."

Dean didn't say anything. He smoothed Sam's hair out of his eyes, watched his brother's eyelashes flutter. Bobby nodded at him. "You read those articles ?" He asked, and Dean cracked a grin at him, the first real grin he'd managed in weeks.

"Cinderella," he said, and Bobby chortled. "And Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White."

Bobby shook his head wryly. "Bet you haven't had to read to him in years," he said, and Dean shook his head. "Before you know it, he'll be reading to himself again." He added, softer, "There's nothing wrong with enjoying it a little, Dean."

A thousand retorts flared up inside of him- and died just as quickly on the end of his tongue. His mouth felt thick and clammy; he nodded once, stood, cradled Sammy to his chest. Sam turned over, muttered, wound his arms around Dean's neck. Dean thought his heart was going to splinter.

"I'm going to put him to bed," he told Bobby. "You want to put on some coffee?"

"Decaf or regular?" Bobby asked, and Dean shot back:

"Decaf's not coffee, Bobby. You know that."

Bobby chuckled again and the sound was good. Dean went up the stairs to the bedroom, where he laid Sammy on the bed and pulled his shoes and jeans off of him, unzipped his hoodie and bundled him underneath the blankets on his side of the bed. Sam's eyes fluttered open; he disentangled one arm, reached for Dean. Dean leaned into the touch. "Dean?"

"Go to sleep, Sammy."

He waited until Sam's eyes had fallen shut, until he was breathing softly and evenly, to turn off the light. He knew Bobby was downstairs waiting, but he couldn't move. He sat there for a long time and listened to the sky weeping outside and watched his brother sleep through aching, blurry eyes.

xxxx

Rufus called the next day from Iowa, and the day after that from Missouri. Dean hunted around a little, found a few more things to look into, a couple suspicious accidents in Atlanta, another in a small town in Alabama. It snowed again, two days after Rufus left, and Dean took Sam outside to shovel a path to the garage, to clear off Bobby's truck and hitch up the plow. Sam wasn't much help – he slipped on some ice and bumped his head, he lost his gloves in a snow drift, he locked them out of the garage- but Dean took him anyways. He wasn't such a bad kid, Dean thought, and besides- it was his job to look after Sammy, wasn't it? That didn't change just because so much else had.

They got the plow on and Bobby took half a day to plow his drive way and most of his yard. He had some cars coming in, he told Dean later, some old customers of his that needed some help negating the damage that the harsh winter had done to their vehicles. "I could always use an extra set of hands," Bobby said sideways to him, and Sam leapt up from his spot on the floor under the table, beaming.

"I can help, Uncle Bobby," he shouted eagerly, and Bobby chuckled softly, palmed the top of Sam's messy brown hair.

"Sure, kid," he said.

Dean waited until Bobby had gone back outside to put Sam down to nap on the living room couch. He tucked the blankets around Sam, put the remote out of Sam's reach and told his brother firmly: "Sleep, Sam. One hour."

"One hour," Sam echoed. He wiggled down further on the couch, pulled the blanket up to his nose. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Who's stuff is that in our closet?"

Dean froze in the doorway. "What stuff?"

"On the floor. In the bag." Sam blinked at him. "Are those your clothes? Can I wear the shirt with the dog, Dean?"

Dean's heart slammed against his ribcage. He ordered Sam, "That's none of your business, you hear me? Leave it alone."

Sam scowled. "It's just clothes and stuff, Dean."

_Just clothes and stuff. _Just all Dean had left of Sam, for now. He shook his head. "Let them alone, Sam."

Sam sighed, long and drawn out, but he rolled over and buried his face in the back of the couch. Dean set about loading the dishwasher, but kept an ear out for Sam. When he was sure he was asleep, he took the stairs two at a time to the bedroom, where he wrestled Sam's duffel out of the mess of the floor of the closet and jammed it onto the shelf above his head, his heart in his throat. He wasn't sure why, but it felt wrong to have Sammy poking at this, asking questions, wondering. Sam couldn't know; he wouldn't understand. More than that, Dean didn't want Sammy to know. He didn't want to face this with his brother, acknowledge that Sam's past and Sammy's future might be two completely separate items. It was two days shy of one month and Dean was beginning to be afraid that maybe- _maybe_ – there was no way out of this for any of them.


End file.
